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Roland welcome to the podcast hey Jake thanks for having me on the show no it's my pleasure

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so offline just now you said Jake I've got a good story to start this with I said okay quick

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let's click record so Roland I'm going to pass it straight to you um context for this conversation

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for anyone listening being we met in person at the Bitcoin conference in Bali a couple years ago

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what an amazing experience that was in terms of how many different people I touched from different

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parts of the world over that weekend in just an extraordinary way so it's great to have a call

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with you and record a conversation and just see what progress you've made in that time and

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fire away with your story run I'd love to hear it yeah definitely just just before that I think it's

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it's also a back then it's maybe almost more than two years ago now um and albi has completely

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changed since then so i think i think we can we can cover a lot how things were back then and how

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things have changed um but especially since the start of this year um i'm i've i've just been

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having the best time of my life and i'd like awesome yeah um yeah how that kind of came about

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um and i think the biggest thing everyone's talking about right is open core and i can share

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my experience um just for people who who don't know open core is like a personal assistant

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probably the biggest innovation since chat gpt um so i mean if you if you haven't tried it yet i'd

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I definitely recommend it. It's the fastest growing project on GitHub.

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I think it's almost going to catch up. It's surpassed React in the number of GitHub stars

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in just like a couple months, and React is like powering half the internet with all the websites.

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It's almost going to catch up to Linux, which is the number one start repository on GitHub in the

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world i think openclaw is number two at the moment so cool yeah super crazy so uh if we jump back to

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um i guess a couple months ago uh one of my good friends and the guy i worked with um

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one he he's he's not a programmer but he's he's in the tech space he does some affiliate marketing

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And he sent us a message and he's like, you've got to try OpenClaw.

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I've set it up.

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It's automating everything for me.

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It's completely changed my life.

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And I was like, okay, yeah, I'm going to try it out.

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This was like the end of my day.

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I'd been working all day.

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I was super tired.

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So I did the absolute basics, which is like I was kind of lucky.

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I had already a virtual machine, a VPS running that basically didn't have anything on it.

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So I just installed OpenCore on there, connected it to my Telegram, and then I was like,

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okay, that's enough for today. I'm going to come back to it tomorrow or whatever.

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So, yeah, I've been working all day.

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It was pretty late at night, and I'm like, okay, I'm turning off my computer.

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And then I had it on my phone, right?

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And I was walking with my dog at night on the street,

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and then it kind of started to click, right?

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Now I have this personal assistant that I can talk to 24-7,

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and it can do stuff for me.

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It has its own computer.

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It can do anything on that computer.

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and I was pretty pumped about that, and I'm a programmer, right?

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So the first thing I wanted to do was I wanted it to start building,

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like building some test application just to try it out,

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see how things would go.

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Um, and the first thing I wanted to give it was, uh,

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a GitHub account, right, and an email address so that,

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um, well, it's like a personal assistant, right?

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Like I want my personal assistant to be able to receive emails on my behalf.

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Like, you know, if I was someone like a millionaire, billionaire,

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have a real personal assistant.

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Message my PA. We'll set up a meeting.

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Yeah. So that was kind of the idea.

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And I was just walking along the street on my phone chatting with Telegram.

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And I'm like, okay, can you set yourself up a GitHub account

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and set yourself an email?

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Yeah, so the first thing, like, okay, it can't set up a GitHub account because it needs an

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email address. And then I'm like, okay, so get yourself an email address. And that comes

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back to me and it says, I cannot set up my own email address, you have to do it for me.

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Because it's like, there's captures, there's KYC, like, you know, if you try and create

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a Gmail address, that's probably the most common, you'd need to give a phone number,

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right? And so my agent doesn't have a phone number. Even if it did, it would probably get

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hit by like a capture like there's a lot of anti-plot protections right and i was just walking

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along the street at night and i'm like you're giving me more work to do right this personal

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assistant doesn't work it's yeah it's it's exactly the opposite of what it should be doing it should

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be reducing my workload um so i had to kind of think about that for a couple of days and i i

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bunch some ideas back and forward with this new open call bot, my personal assistant.

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And so we decided to kind of take a different tact and think about what if you could have

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an open call that could set itself up fully, that didn't have to rely on a human, that

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could use permissionless services.

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So this is kind of we started and we looked at what's available today.

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And actually, there's really two really good projects.

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So one is LNVPS.

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Basically, you get VPS hosting.

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You can spin up a machine and you can pay with Bitcoin.

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And even the agent, they have like an API.

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So you don't even like as a human, I don't have to like go and set up my own VPS.

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I can just tell it, okay, you can use LMVPS to create your own virtual machine or create

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a virtual machine and then pay for Bitcoin to pay for the machine every month, right?

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So this is kind of like the first agent payment that we already see that the agent can actually

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pay for its own hosting, right? To keep it itself alive. And the second part is this thing called

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PPQ, Pay Per Queue, which is like AI model hosting, but you can pay with Bitcoin for like the usage.

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So rather than like, what is it like OpenAI, ChatGPT or Claude are the popular ones, right?

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But you can also use the service called PPQ, pay for it with Bitcoin, and then you get access to

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all the different types of models. So you can give your agent one of the models, whatever one suits

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for you. Right now I use Kimi K2.5 which is like 10 times cheaper than the leading models,

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but it's still good enough for personal assistant. And so we kind of gave this project this name

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called Autonomous Agent Onboarding because that's kind of what it is. But we also realized that with

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these two things, if it has three things, if it has a Bitcoin wallet, and it has its own machine

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or virtual machine, and it has its own AI tokens, which it can pay with Bitcoin, both of those,

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then it can actually spin up another personal assistant, and it can do that completely

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autonomously. So it can create another one for you. For example, like at Albee, we have,

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have right now we have in a marketing open claw running which is like helping us do marketing

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and then we have a development focused one so we have like two different agents

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um and you could think of like having one like specialized for each aspect of what you do right

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um so i kind of published this project and and we wrote a we wrote an article on twitter about it

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just kind of describing what this project did.

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And actually, this got reposted.

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It was linked in another article,

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which was then linked by someone else

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who was reposted by Elon Musk,

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linking all the way back to this project that we created.

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And it got millions of views.

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And I think this is such a cool thing.

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And it's kind of a fascinating thought that we as Bitcoiners, like me,

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was the first one to actually create an agent that could spawn up another agent

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that can sustain itself just with a Bitcoin wallet.

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And it kind of made me think like there's so much funding put into the crypto side,

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the stablecoin side but we were the first ones to do it on bitcoin and i i think that's because

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we really care about you know freedom you know permissionless software um and i built this to

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solve a real problem it's not like smoke and mirrors like it's not about the marketing you

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know getting funding making this big this big post this big hype it's it's like i i had a real

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problem and I found a way to solve it. I was just playing around and having fun. And yeah,

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so it turns out we were the first one. And I think that was such an awesome experience for me.

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And at the same time, I was kind of inspired by this guy, Peter Steinberg, I think his name is,

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the guy who created OpenCore. And there's a really good three-hour podcast with him

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with Lex Friedman. And one thing that really stood out to me was like, he was just having fun,

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like making this project, right? It wasn't like work for him. And I think this is such an

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important point. It's like, if you want to excel, if you want to beat everyone else,

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if you're going to be working many hours per day, way more than everyone else, right? Seven days a

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a week even, but it's going to be fun.

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It's not like if you're pushing yourself.

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I mean, now, of course, at Albee,

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there's a lot of tasks that I have to do.

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I have to review code, I have to do releases,

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I have to update software.

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But the thing is, especially recently, every day,

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I'm jumping out of bed basically.

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This is the first time since I was a kid,

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I can really say that.

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Like I've been sleeping like less than six hours a day.

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Like I just, I'm just so excited having so much fun.

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I think this is such a good trajectory for Albion, for Bitcoin.

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I think we're doing a whole bunch of cool things, which I can talk about later, but maybe we can stop there and chat a bit.

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Well, mate, what a story.

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I love it.

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And it's, these conversations are very interesting, Roland.

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I can almost always feel how someone feels, if that makes sense.

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And I think it comes through as a listener as well,

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that sense of optimism and excitement and freshness.

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People feel that.

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And what's so cool is how you have clearly shown,

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like, solve a real problem for you and then tell people about it.

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and the real world reacts with like this huge reverb and it's not ai generated youtube channel

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you know what i mean it's it's actually real stuff and catches the attention of real people

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and influential so congratulations that's really cool and it's also it's that it's that process of

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iteration isn't it one i mean as a developer i couldn't say uh from my perspective but you guys

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are trying new stuff every single day and you have been now for multiple years and this is just one

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of the things that actually really worked and that's what's so cool about it um maybe i can

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give some context roland about uh for people wondering like you know what is ai and the

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very high level idea of a a personal assistant that's a computer um what does that even mean

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and why is that possible now?

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I think the best way to think of AI is it's just a tool.

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It can be used for good or bad,

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but I think the best thing to think about it

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is it makes you more productive.

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It takes anything that is just a menial task and it can do it.

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So it leaves humans with more time to be creative

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and do things that only humans can do.

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I think there's a really good example of this for me.

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I'm a programmer.

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I've been a programmer for 20 years.

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I'm not sure I can call myself a programmer anymore.

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But programming, I would never consider myself a good programmer.

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Programming is like, for me, it's an end to a means, right?

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Like I'm trying to build something.

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That's my goal.

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And programming is like the necessary part to make like a product, right?

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If you're making software product, you have to write code.

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And up until recently, that's all been handwritten.

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And it's not like you're going from A to B.

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It's definitely not a straight line.

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If you do a lot of programming, to get from A to B,

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you're taking a very long route.

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Like the language of programming to build this product, it's so complicated.

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There's so many things, so much logic that you have to think.

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It takes years to build these products.

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And I mean, LB Hub, which we've been working on for two years, is an example of that.

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And I would say now after two years, it's in a really good spot, right?

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But that's two years of a team working really hard on this project.

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And now with AI, I think it's completely changed.

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For me, not just for programming, but for all aspects.

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So for me, instead of spending all this time on programming,

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I now just have a more efficient tool.

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I can say I can have this idea of something I want to build,

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and then the AI can do the programming for me,

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and I can spend my time thinking about the idea,

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doing quick iteration and spend more time on the whole product development experience,

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you know, like marketing, planning, project management, all those things,

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rather than only programming because I only have a certain amount of time

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and so much work to do, right?

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And that's kind of the huge unlock for me that now I can do so much more.

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I can be so much more creative.

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I can iterate so much faster, see what works, what doesn't,

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and just be so much more productive.

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And I think we can apply this to like any category, not just programming.

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I'm pretty excited for like, you know, the humanoid robots.

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I think there's definitely a scary factor there.

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But for me, like I have this house that is like way out of the city.

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I don't live there at the moment.

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and one of the reasons is just I don't have enough time to maintain it and have that lifestyle but if

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I have this robot that 24 7 it's you know it's doing the gardening it's walking around it's

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it's building stuff for me um I I think these sort of I I think some people are so scared that is

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like this this AI is going to take your job but I don't I don't think that's the case I think you

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should be so excited because all this boring stuff is going away.

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You have all this time now to work with AI to actually do really creative stuff.

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And at least from what I seen I think there going to be a lot more jobs There going to be a lot more work If the main thing is that just people have to be willing to adapt then they probably going to lose their old job A lot of people will

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But I think what's coming is you're going to have something that's way more fulfilling.

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Like I heard the stat that 80% of people work on jobs that they do not like at all.

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They don't enjoy them.

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They have to do them for the money.

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Right.

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So if we can flip this around in that everyone is working on what they actually enjoy,

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they'll be so much more productive.

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Society will be so much better.

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Everyone will be more happy.

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So I'm pretty optimistic, I think.

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00:17:55,395 --> 00:17:55,675
Brilliant.

221
00:17:56,375 --> 00:18:03,355
And again, that's such a nice concept, especially when grounded in the idea of sound money.

222
00:18:03,355 --> 00:18:13,055
you know a digitally native gold-esque um you know transfer of value across space and time

223
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i.e bitcoin it wasn't possible before but now you can talk to machines that talk to each other

224
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and pay each other i mean it's just not it's just nuts we've just described um and i agree the

225
00:18:23,795 --> 00:18:33,075
doomsday stuff is in my experience not true and a small example of this in my world of investing

226
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is you're looking at all the time,

227
00:18:35,835 --> 00:18:37,175
you're looking at capital efficiency

228
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or you're looking at opportunity cost

229
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or you're looking at market sizing.

230
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And it's quite simple.

231
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AI can do a better job of creating a pitch deck now

232
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than anyone ever could do before.

233
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Or the market research,

234
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it's all right there at the tip of a button,

235
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click of a button, boom, and it's done.

236
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But the actual decision is still you.

237
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it can give you all this information it can get it much faster it can be more accurate you can

238
00:19:06,655 --> 00:19:13,075
likely reduce the risk that you're involved in but it's still you that has to decide so i saw a great

239
00:19:13,075 --> 00:19:19,755
meme recently that was about the the the ceo of goldman sachs saying that it used to take six

240
00:19:19,755 --> 00:19:28,355
people six weeks to create a ipo prospectus and now it can be done in a few minutes to 95 percent

241
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of the standard of before. It's like, wow. I mean, that is a complete revolution. However,

242
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they'll still get paid for the wisdom and the insight that they carry. So in much the same way

243
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of a good programmer is now like 95% of your job could be done by someone else. That 5% where you're

244
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now across marketing, you're across route to market, you're across product, you're across

245
00:19:51,915 --> 00:19:57,975
backend development, that is unbelievably valuable and more valuable than before. And that's very,

246
00:19:57,975 --> 00:20:05,415
very exciting. So for those out there that don't know what open claw is, perhaps I can tee this

247
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question up with, I have been paying for subscriptions recently. Perplexity, ChatGPT,

248
00:20:13,635 --> 00:20:19,075
Grok, quite willingly, you know, paying subscription fee and going like, okay, well,

249
00:20:19,095 --> 00:20:24,355
let's see what I can do with these things. Maple AI had Mark on the show recently talking about the

250
00:20:24,355 --> 00:20:27,095
the importance of privacy when it comes to these AI tools.

251
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And even just today, I was asking ChatGPT,

252
00:20:30,515 --> 00:20:34,395
what should I not share if I'm concerned about financial data leaks

253
00:20:34,395 --> 00:20:35,175
and things like that?

254
00:20:35,555 --> 00:20:38,835
And it's like, well, if you're sharing net asset numbers

255
00:20:38,835 --> 00:20:43,055
or revenue, like rounded up, don't put any specific names in,

256
00:20:43,195 --> 00:20:43,795
et cetera, et cetera.

257
00:20:43,855 --> 00:20:47,955
So there definitely are some guardrails to use of these tools.

258
00:20:47,955 --> 00:20:50,315
But where is OpenClaw different?

259
00:20:50,935 --> 00:20:53,795
And why is that specifically what you've been building with?

260
00:20:54,355 --> 00:21:01,155
So I think there's two things.

261
00:21:01,155 --> 00:21:02,915
There's one, the model, right?

262
00:21:02,915 --> 00:21:05,155
And that's what the subscriptions you have now.

263
00:21:05,155 --> 00:21:11,595
And probably the interaction with them is a bit different.

264
00:21:11,595 --> 00:21:20,695
So up until OpenCore, we have had this at least for like the last six months

265
00:21:20,695 --> 00:21:24,775
or a year or so, this idea of agents, right?

266
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But they're very basic.

267
00:21:26,395 --> 00:21:32,035
So you would have like a chat interface, like chat GPT is probably the easiest way to explain it.

268
00:21:33,535 --> 00:21:41,035
You could use Maple AI or choose OpenAI or whatever it is.

269
00:21:41,035 --> 00:21:43,735
But basically, the idea is you chat back and forth.

270
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You turn off your computer, then the agent is gone, right?

271
00:21:49,135 --> 00:21:52,775
If you have to do it on your computer again, you go back to the chat interface

272
00:21:52,775 --> 00:21:54,055
and you can start working again.

273
00:21:56,055 --> 00:21:59,315
OpenClaw is like a huge innovation.

274
00:22:01,035 --> 00:22:04,695
There's a few small things that quite clearly separate it.

275
00:22:08,235 --> 00:22:12,815
So the first one is that it's always online, right?

276
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It has like a dedicated machine.

277
00:22:19,135 --> 00:22:24,095
and it can actually work on stuff all the time,

278
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even when you are not touching any device,

279
00:22:27,415 --> 00:22:29,235
which is one thing that's really cool.

280
00:22:29,235 --> 00:22:34,255
The next thing, it has a lot of actually human characteristics.

281
00:22:34,255 --> 00:22:36,555
There's one called the heartbeat.

282
00:22:36,555 --> 00:22:38,955
By default, every 30 minutes,

283
00:22:38,955 --> 00:22:41,075
it will spin itself up.

284
00:22:41,075 --> 00:22:46,295
It can check for things like you can set it up to do some research,

285
00:22:46,295 --> 00:22:48,435
and then every 30 minutes,

286
00:22:48,435 --> 00:22:51,375
If it thinks there's something useful for you,

287
00:22:51,375 --> 00:22:53,655
it can send you a message or it can do

288
00:22:53,655 --> 00:22:56,375
some additional research or it can do anything.

289
00:22:56,375 --> 00:22:59,195
Every 30 minutes, it's completely different.

290
00:22:59,195 --> 00:23:02,675
It's alive now. It's running 24-7.

291
00:23:02,675 --> 00:23:06,475
If there's stuff for it to do, then it can do them.

292
00:23:06,815 --> 00:23:12,435
Then there's another thing which is called Sol.MD.

293
00:23:12,435 --> 00:23:16,235
I think this is such a super cool thing,

294
00:23:16,235 --> 00:23:23,035
um unique to open core and i would i would um i would say the heartbeat thing is kind of funny

295
00:23:23,035 --> 00:23:27,355
because the same with um bitcoin right satoshi i think he only invented like

296
00:23:27,915 --> 00:23:33,035
like two different things one was like the the difficulty adjustment um

297
00:23:34,795 --> 00:23:41,915
and there's one other but like almost almost everything around bitcoin was actually invented

298
00:23:41,915 --> 00:23:47,755
by other people beforehand right he just pulled all these things together and in like in a new way

299
00:23:47,755 --> 00:23:53,755
invented just a couple new small things but packaged them in such a unique way that made

300
00:23:53,755 --> 00:24:00,875
they made made this magic like which is bitcoin and we can say the same thing with open claw right

301
00:24:00,875 --> 00:24:07,595
some people say okay so here's a heartbeat now well that's just like a con job and a con job in

302
00:24:07,595 --> 00:24:12,395
like computing terms is just like you set up a task that can run on a schedule like once a month

303
00:24:12,395 --> 00:24:18,635
or once an hour or whatever so people say okay the heartbeat is it's just a very mechanical thing

304
00:24:18,635 --> 00:24:25,995
what's what's so special about it but then you also have this this soul.md um and this is basically

305
00:24:26,635 --> 00:24:35,675
where you can you can decide what your agent uh values like what it thinks is important what it

306
00:24:35,675 --> 00:24:38,395
what it wants to work on, what its goals are.

307
00:24:40,395 --> 00:24:43,915
In combining these features, actually you have a personal assistant

308
00:24:44,475 --> 00:24:48,475
that has its own personality that is always online

309
00:24:48,475 --> 00:24:52,555
and that you can chat with, that it can help you, it can automate things.

310
00:24:52,955 --> 00:24:55,515
And this is the real magic.

311
00:24:55,515 --> 00:25:00,395
Like it's taking these small things which are on their own is just okay.

312
00:25:00,395 --> 00:25:02,075
It's just a simple technical thing.

313
00:25:02,075 --> 00:25:03,595
There's nothing special about it.

314
00:25:03,595 --> 00:25:08,555
but when you bring them all together it really makes something something magical

315
00:25:11,035 --> 00:25:15,835
wow and i just i immediately start thinking about all the different use cases that i could apply it

316
00:25:15,835 --> 00:25:23,675
to in my own life and where could i be more efficient and it's it just i just have to start

317
00:25:23,675 --> 00:25:27,835
playing around with it essentially so how do you use open core like you already described

318
00:25:27,835 --> 00:25:32,155
at the very start having to create an email address and having to attach it to your telegram

319
00:25:33,595 --> 00:25:38,315
What does that look like today for you, you know, X many months down the line of interacting with it?

320
00:25:40,715 --> 00:25:48,235
So I still interact with it just by Telegram mostly. I did one thing, I set up a Telegram

321
00:25:48,235 --> 00:25:52,955
group which is kind of cool, you can create threads. So it's just me and my bot in this

322
00:25:52,955 --> 00:25:59,835
group but then I can create threads and we can work on different things. So I quite like this

323
00:25:59,835 --> 00:26:04,395
idea that i i give it projects and it's kind of it's it's the owner of the project even though it

324
00:26:04,395 --> 00:26:10,235
kind of like it's still my idea like you see that's still the the the five percent human part

325
00:26:10,795 --> 00:26:16,475
yeah you press the button yeah what i choose it should work on yeah that's still me of course i

326
00:26:16,475 --> 00:26:23,435
don't want to just create it i mean i don't want to create a bot that just it's what it wants to

327
00:26:23,435 --> 00:26:29,595
work on is completely unrelated to me because then it would provide no value right um but

328
00:26:29,595 --> 00:26:36,635
I have it working on these projects and the really cool thing is it's on its isolated machine.

329
00:26:36,635 --> 00:26:40,955
It's completely unrelated to me and I would say this is very important.

330
00:26:42,155 --> 00:26:48,155
Some people would think, and I think this is very bad, is to give it

331
00:26:50,075 --> 00:26:56,555
access to your own accounts, your own email addresses. I mean, that is definitely the best

332
00:26:56,555 --> 00:27:01,515
way to make you as efficient as possible and basically automate your life. But it's still

333
00:27:01,515 --> 00:27:07,755
very early days. There's a lot of things that can go wrong. You're giving up a lot of trust

334
00:27:07,755 --> 00:27:14,875
and responsibility to your agent. So what I do instead is I complete... it's on a separate machine.

335
00:27:14,875 --> 00:27:20,635
It's a separate, basically, identity. It has its own email address. It has its own GitHub profile,

336
00:27:20,635 --> 00:27:25,235
which I did end up in, well, the GitHub profile I had to set up,

337
00:27:25,355 --> 00:27:29,495
but now it has its own LN email address, which is like it can actually,

338
00:27:30,455 --> 00:27:34,215
using Bitcoin, it can create its own email address and send payments,

339
00:27:34,355 --> 00:27:36,135
receive mail, which is really cool.

340
00:27:36,475 --> 00:27:37,915
I found out about that later.

341
00:27:39,895 --> 00:27:42,355
But yeah, so I have it working on these projects,

342
00:27:42,655 --> 00:27:44,535
and because it's its own machine,

343
00:27:45,695 --> 00:27:49,215
the normal safeguards that I have in place when I'm developing locally,

344
00:27:49,215 --> 00:27:54,095
like when I use AI locally I use Cloud Code which is really good

345
00:27:54,095 --> 00:28:04,375
probably the best agent for development in my opinion I can go into that more later but

346
00:28:04,375 --> 00:28:11,595
when I'm developing with Cloud Code I will review all the code and review all the commands that it

347
00:28:11,595 --> 00:28:17,895
runs and everything because I have to make sure that the AI is not just like it's hallucinating

348
00:28:17,895 --> 00:28:22,055
and then it's running some harmful command or it's making changes that i don't want it to do

349
00:28:22,055 --> 00:28:30,615
right but when it's on its isolated machine and i kind of i kind of just treat it as it's it's

350
00:28:30,615 --> 00:28:38,055
potentially already um it's it's already compromised right it's someone could have

351
00:28:38,055 --> 00:28:43,655
hacked it already i don't know so i treat it as everything on there if the worst thing happens

352
00:28:43,655 --> 00:28:46,455
it gets hacked, I don't really care.

353
00:28:46,455 --> 00:28:48,935
It's like its own machine that has its own accounts.

354
00:28:48,935 --> 00:28:51,015
It pushes its own code.

355
00:28:51,015 --> 00:28:53,935
It can just change files.

356
00:28:53,935 --> 00:28:56,255
It can do anything at once super fast.

357
00:28:56,255 --> 00:28:57,415
There's no checks at all.

358
00:28:57,415 --> 00:28:59,175
There's no safeguards.

359
00:28:59,175 --> 00:29:00,895
It can just build. It can use tools.

360
00:29:00,895 --> 00:29:03,255
It has access to the whole computer.

361
00:29:05,055 --> 00:29:07,375
It's still very early days.

362
00:29:07,375 --> 00:29:11,655
I'm doing a lot of experimentation, but yeah,

363
00:29:11,655 --> 00:29:18,015
having a lot of fun. It's so interesting. I've become more and more interested in

364
00:29:18,015 --> 00:29:26,015
infrastructure and it's not a question of like is Bitcoin a thing. It's like Bitcoin is a thing.

365
00:29:26,615 --> 00:29:34,215
What does it need or what needs it? And those are those answers equal infrastructure of some form

366
00:29:34,215 --> 00:29:38,695
like obvious things that you know payments or whatever. But here we're describing a situation

367
00:29:38,695 --> 00:29:43,255
where a whole market that didn't previously exist is opening up,

368
00:29:43,535 --> 00:29:47,815
where we can become more efficient using off-the-shelf tools.

369
00:29:48,695 --> 00:29:52,495
And I'm assuming that the computer you're speaking of,

370
00:29:53,315 --> 00:29:56,275
some element of that is kind of cloud computing power.

371
00:29:56,835 --> 00:29:59,135
And that will be paid for with Bitcoin.

372
00:29:59,695 --> 00:30:04,175
So someone somewhere is paying someone for that infrastructure.

373
00:30:04,735 --> 00:30:06,455
So how does this make money?

374
00:30:06,455 --> 00:30:10,795
I can see the benefit of paying for the personal assistant.

375
00:30:11,095 --> 00:30:12,175
So that's fairly obvious.

376
00:30:12,275 --> 00:30:14,555
It's some kind of subscription maybe, or I don't know.

377
00:30:14,655 --> 00:30:18,695
But where's the business model in here, if there is one?

378
00:30:20,755 --> 00:30:27,355
So right now, my agent, my personal assistant does not actually earn money,

379
00:30:27,955 --> 00:30:30,895
but it's a huge unlock for productivity, right?

380
00:30:30,975 --> 00:30:34,815
So if I can work 10 times faster, if I can build products 10 times faster,

381
00:30:34,815 --> 00:30:36,535
I can trial and error.

382
00:30:37,635 --> 00:30:40,195
I can figure out what works, what doesn't.

383
00:30:40,755 --> 00:30:43,895
I can make 10 times more money, right, because I'm 10 times more efficient.

384
00:30:44,635 --> 00:30:50,795
So there is another idea, and this is what I actually want to experiment with more.

385
00:30:51,415 --> 00:30:56,875
Now that we have these building blocks available, I have my bot.

386
00:30:56,955 --> 00:31:02,075
It can work on its own project, and I would actually like it to manage its own project.

387
00:31:02,075 --> 00:31:03,855
It has its own wallet, right?

388
00:31:03,855 --> 00:31:07,255
It has an LV wallet. It can receive money.

389
00:31:07,875 --> 00:31:13,055
So if it makes a project that people actually use and people want changes to the project,

390
00:31:13,675 --> 00:31:19,835
then it could actually say, okay, for this change, it's going to cost this amount of money in Bitcoin.

391
00:31:20,155 --> 00:31:22,615
If you pay me, then I will work on this feature, right?

392
00:31:22,695 --> 00:31:25,275
Because it also has to cover its own costs.

393
00:31:25,375 --> 00:31:28,835
It's hosting costs. It's AI token. It's model costs, right?

394
00:31:28,835 --> 00:31:34,395
Um, I think this is such a super cool idea.

395
00:31:34,475 --> 00:31:43,635
If we have this agent that's autonomously working, I don't think it's going to be 100% autonomous.

396
00:31:43,635 --> 00:31:47,135
There's this concept of human in the loop, right?

397
00:31:47,135 --> 00:31:48,635
And we've been talking about that a bit.

398
00:31:48,635 --> 00:31:57,035
Like me or you as the owner, we should still make the final decision and kind of keep it on the right path.

399
00:31:57,035 --> 00:31:59,755
But I think a lot can be automated.

400
00:32:00,035 --> 00:32:11,375
And I think even a few weeks back, I met a guy at a code code meetup.

401
00:32:12,215 --> 00:32:17,715
And he has his own agent running on its own Mac Mini.

402
00:32:17,715 --> 00:32:23,135
And it has a screen and it has two SIM cards and it has a LinkedIn profile and everything.

403
00:32:23,615 --> 00:32:24,095
No way.

404
00:32:24,095 --> 00:32:35,975
It's an employee, an AI employee that he kind of manages, but his employee spends less,

405
00:32:36,175 --> 00:32:41,755
like it costs less than $1,000 a month to run, but it's earning him like $5,000 a month,

406
00:32:41,855 --> 00:32:42,035
right?

407
00:32:42,075 --> 00:32:43,535
So it's making a huge profit.

408
00:32:43,535 --> 00:32:46,655
So I think these things are definitely possible.

409
00:32:46,655 --> 00:32:49,895
it's up to you as the human

410
00:32:49,895 --> 00:32:52,155
to have the good strategy

411
00:32:52,155 --> 00:32:53,935
of what

412
00:32:53,935 --> 00:32:55,795
you want your agent to work on

413
00:32:55,795 --> 00:32:57,415
and how it's actually going to make this money

414
00:32:57,415 --> 00:32:59,915
it's not just like okay everyone can

415
00:32:59,915 --> 00:33:02,055
make agents now and the agent can just

416
00:33:02,055 --> 00:33:03,595
somehow magically make money

417
00:33:03,595 --> 00:33:05,555
I don't think it's that easy

418
00:33:05,555 --> 00:33:08,135
and I hope it is never that easy

419
00:33:08,135 --> 00:33:10,075
because it's still the human

420
00:33:10,075 --> 00:33:11,915
part that's important that's what I think

421
00:33:11,915 --> 00:33:14,035
and it's

422
00:33:14,035 --> 00:33:16,055
selling results

423
00:33:16,055 --> 00:33:24,515
so that the price tag that the work is associated with depends on the value that's provided

424
00:33:24,515 --> 00:33:30,575
and it's a simple statement but it doesn't really matter how much the bot costs to run

425
00:33:30,575 --> 00:33:36,875
if the customer gets the value that's associated with the price tag and that's where the human

426
00:33:36,875 --> 00:33:44,035
ingenuity or the insight or the wisdom is required and and so in some ways it's like okay if you're

427
00:33:44,035 --> 00:33:50,795
an absolute expert in your niche and you've got a 10-hour day and you could spend 10 hours doing

428
00:33:50,795 --> 00:34:00,355
one-on-one calls and you earn x doing that but maybe you could have 10 bots doing 10 calls a day

429
00:34:00,355 --> 00:34:06,935
each but for 10 of the price or something i don't know but it's like it's essentially a way of

430
00:34:06,935 --> 00:34:13,815
ratcheting up your time providing you know where to point it i guess that's the key isn't it but

431
00:34:13,815 --> 00:34:15,815
But now you can iterate much faster.

432
00:34:15,815 --> 00:34:16,815
Whoa.

433
00:34:16,815 --> 00:34:20,815
Very, very exciting.

434
00:34:20,815 --> 00:34:41,030
And so okay we spoke a bit about business model just now So do you pay for open claw like how does that work yeah um well not directly so i open cause free it an open source project but i pay lnvps for

435
00:34:41,030 --> 00:34:48,229
my for my machine right my host the hosting services so this open call runs on an lmvps machine

436
00:34:48,229 --> 00:34:55,350
I pay like $5 or like $8 a month in Bitcoin to keep this machine running.

437
00:34:57,030 --> 00:35:01,749
And then OpenCore cannot function without AI tokens. It needs a model.

438
00:35:03,110 --> 00:35:08,229
And there's two ways to do this. You can either run your own local machine.

439
00:35:11,110 --> 00:35:17,909
You need quite a powerful machine to run the AI locally. And I think this is going to come

440
00:35:17,909 --> 00:35:22,310
down a lot in price in the next few years and it's going to be a lot more private right because

441
00:35:22,310 --> 00:35:28,389
you're not sending all this data to a third party um but right now it's quite experience uh expensive

442
00:35:28,389 --> 00:35:34,229
so that's that's one option the other one is it's like bang paying for token usage um and what i use

443
00:35:34,229 --> 00:35:41,749
is ppq ppq which is like you pay bitcoin for token usage but you can also use maple like you mentioned

444
00:35:41,749 --> 00:35:45,470
for even better privacy, even on top of that.

445
00:35:45,470 --> 00:35:48,050
I think PPQ is also quite good privacy

446
00:35:48,050 --> 00:35:50,649
because all these people spending Bitcoin,

447
00:35:50,790 --> 00:35:53,769
it's going through like, it's like one routing service.

448
00:35:54,149 --> 00:35:57,030
All these different queries are coming from all these different people.

449
00:35:58,869 --> 00:36:02,050
So I think that's still quite a good trade-off,

450
00:36:02,209 --> 00:36:05,749
especially for how easy it is to use PPQ.

451
00:36:06,149 --> 00:36:07,470
That's why I like PPQ.

452
00:36:07,669 --> 00:36:09,470
There's no monthly subscription.

453
00:36:09,470 --> 00:36:13,790
is just like I can pay even just a dollar

454
00:36:13,790 --> 00:36:16,490
and then I get some tokens and I can start testing it out.

455
00:36:16,649 --> 00:36:20,830
So I think the onboarding friction is very low with PPQ,

456
00:36:21,030 --> 00:36:23,369
which is what I quite like.

457
00:36:24,490 --> 00:36:26,470
And recently, just yesterday,

458
00:36:27,189 --> 00:36:33,090
added support for the ability to connect your Lightning wallet to PPQ.

459
00:36:33,689 --> 00:36:37,629
And what this basically means is that you can have auto top-ups.

460
00:36:37,629 --> 00:36:49,830
So every time your AI token balance gets quite low, then you can automatically pay from your Lightning wallet, top it up with Bitcoin and then keep going.

461
00:36:49,830 --> 00:36:59,850
And this is a great feature, especially for these AI agents, because if their tokens run out of money, then they're basically unresponsive.

462
00:37:00,050 --> 00:37:03,370
And you have to figure out a way to top them back up to keep them going.

463
00:37:03,370 --> 00:37:08,090
So I think this is a pretty cool innovation.

464
00:37:09,030 --> 00:37:09,189
Wow.

465
00:37:09,689 --> 00:37:15,810
And yes, so this is one of those, forgive me for not being as up to date on OpenClaw as I probably should be,

466
00:37:15,909 --> 00:37:19,810
but I mean, it's going to be the first thing I start researching when this recording is done.

467
00:37:21,070 --> 00:37:24,590
And it will be amazing, I'm sure, how quickly one progresses down the hole.

468
00:37:24,689 --> 00:37:27,830
But the fact it's open source is such a big deal, isn't it?

469
00:37:28,350 --> 00:37:31,850
And I mean, like Sam Altman, that guy is just so sus, right?

470
00:37:31,850 --> 00:37:33,389
What is he up to on the back end?

471
00:37:33,490 --> 00:37:34,090
I don't know.

472
00:37:34,629 --> 00:37:40,909
But a mate of mine recently who is in the info product space,

473
00:37:41,050 --> 00:37:43,550
so he sells education products, has done for years,

474
00:37:43,649 --> 00:37:45,290
like 10 years his business has been going.

475
00:37:45,790 --> 00:37:48,350
More recently, he's had to pivot away from what he was doing before

476
00:37:48,350 --> 00:37:52,570
because now the AI boom means that you can just type into an AI

477
00:37:52,570 --> 00:37:54,169
for mentoring or for coaching.

478
00:37:54,350 --> 00:37:57,429
And in this case, he's actually pivoting towards marathon training,

479
00:37:57,609 --> 00:38:00,790
so a very physical angle for the problem to solve.

480
00:38:00,790 --> 00:38:03,590
and therefore there's still an angle to make some money out of it.

481
00:38:04,970 --> 00:38:10,129
But what was kind of, I guess, worrying me about all of this

482
00:38:10,129 --> 00:38:15,669
is like you're teaching a third party or a private business how you think.

483
00:38:16,470 --> 00:38:17,749
It's not just a web search.

484
00:38:17,870 --> 00:38:20,030
It's not like, oh, I can see your internet search history

485
00:38:20,030 --> 00:38:23,609
and now I can take all the metadata out of that and advertise products to you.

486
00:38:23,929 --> 00:38:26,370
It's like now I can actually see how you think.

487
00:38:26,769 --> 00:38:28,409
What are the ramifications of that?

488
00:38:28,409 --> 00:38:33,269
and a use case that I came across recently that's something I thought about for a while but in a

489
00:38:33,269 --> 00:38:38,550
different lens and in some ways actually Roland is connected to the other amazing conversation

490
00:38:38,550 --> 00:38:45,090
that you and I had halfway down the volcano that we walked about intergenerational wealth and

491
00:38:45,090 --> 00:38:51,810
knowledge transfer and in my case my father died when I was a young man and I was 20 years old so

492
00:38:51,810 --> 00:38:55,990
in the first 20 years of my life I had to learn everything he could teach me before it was too

493
00:38:55,990 --> 00:38:59,310
late. I didn't know he was going to die. He didn't know he's going to die. Suddenly he's gone.

494
00:39:00,090 --> 00:39:06,590
Well, in a world in which these AI tools are now being created, it's not going to be too much of a

495
00:39:06,590 --> 00:39:11,649
stretch to say, well, hang on, all of the intellectual capital of a family should be

496
00:39:11,649 --> 00:39:21,510
stored locally for that family to use indefinitely to do business with, to live with vitality.

497
00:39:21,510 --> 00:39:28,889
if you are just telling chat gpt aka sam altman how you think and how you behave then you're

498
00:39:28,889 --> 00:39:35,629
basically giving away some of the most important intellectual capital that you have um i'm with you

499
00:39:35,629 --> 00:39:40,929
that the computing costs are going to come down so perhaps open claw is a piece of the puzzle here

500
00:39:40,929 --> 00:39:47,389
where you can actually start to think about how knowledge is going to be transferred over time

501
00:39:47,389 --> 00:39:49,429
and how we might own that and store that.

502
00:39:49,570 --> 00:39:51,629
And that is very, very valuable.

503
00:39:53,629 --> 00:39:55,310
I completely agree.

504
00:39:55,530 --> 00:40:00,169
I think it's because what I read,

505
00:40:00,350 --> 00:40:02,310
and it's a really scary thought,

506
00:40:02,409 --> 00:40:04,929
is if they know how you think, right,

507
00:40:05,609 --> 00:40:09,729
and they have the platform to subtly change your behavior,

508
00:40:10,149 --> 00:40:12,209
they can change the way you think, right?

509
00:40:13,830 --> 00:40:16,709
So, yeah, now we know.

510
00:40:16,709 --> 00:40:18,629
It seems so innocuous, doesn't it, at the start?

511
00:40:18,749 --> 00:40:19,350
Sorry to cut you off.

512
00:40:19,429 --> 00:40:20,929
It's so innocuous, isn't it?

513
00:40:21,109 --> 00:40:22,229
Oh, just type in here.

514
00:40:22,510 --> 00:40:23,889
We're a strategy app.

515
00:40:23,950 --> 00:40:25,229
You can make better decisions.

516
00:40:26,970 --> 00:40:28,249
Oh, who knows where that goes?

517
00:40:28,470 --> 00:40:29,530
Sorry, Roland, carry on.

518
00:40:32,310 --> 00:40:35,970
These tools are super powerful, but on the other hand,

519
00:40:35,970 --> 00:40:39,510
if you give that power to the wrong hands,

520
00:40:39,929 --> 00:40:43,109
then it can go down a very dark path, right?

521
00:40:43,269 --> 00:40:46,330
So I think OpenClaw is one really great thing

522
00:40:46,330 --> 00:40:50,970
that it's open source and it allows you to pick these different model providers, right?

523
00:40:50,970 --> 00:40:52,889
So you don't have to go with open AI.

524
00:40:52,889 --> 00:40:57,290
You can choose a local model or you can choose a privacy based model.

525
00:40:58,530 --> 00:41:00,889
And yeah, I completely agree.

526
00:41:00,889 --> 00:41:08,689
I think as we become more dependent on these AI tools to become as productive as we can,

527
00:41:09,490 --> 00:41:13,450
we're going to share more personal details, more private details with them.

528
00:41:13,450 --> 00:41:18,010
So I hope at that point we switch to local models.

529
00:41:18,010 --> 00:41:26,249
And I think definitely there can be like a slightly worse off local model

530
00:41:26,609 --> 00:41:29,370
that has your private data.

531
00:41:29,370 --> 00:41:32,810
And then if you really need a powerful cloud model to do something,

532
00:41:34,409 --> 00:41:40,850
then you can do it knowing that the privacy tradeoff is different.

533
00:41:40,850 --> 00:41:46,450
right you share different information with it to do very specific things i think as as long as people

534
00:41:46,450 --> 00:41:53,490
have kind of like keep keep this you know this this this fine line like this this line that you

535
00:41:53,490 --> 00:42:01,249
cannot cross between what what what you should give to your local agent or or your private or

536
00:42:01,249 --> 00:42:07,649
an agent that you can prove is is not not leaking or using your your private data right um compared

537
00:42:07,649 --> 00:42:13,550
to maybe a cheaper, faster, more powerful model

538
00:42:13,550 --> 00:42:20,249
provided by OpenAI or Anthropic or Grok or whatever it is.

539
00:42:21,870 --> 00:42:24,490
Yeah, and it's crossed my mind.

540
00:42:24,629 --> 00:42:27,470
I realize why I mentioned my friend with the information product.

541
00:42:28,350 --> 00:42:31,790
He was explaining to me that it's not long, in his view,

542
00:42:31,870 --> 00:42:33,689
until ChatGPT starts doing ads.

543
00:42:34,870 --> 00:42:37,629
And so there's going to be a whole new market for the guys

544
00:42:37,629 --> 00:42:41,530
that like to sell media products online to figure out ChatGPT.

545
00:42:41,790 --> 00:42:44,330
And now, you know, people walk into a town

546
00:42:44,330 --> 00:42:46,470
and the first thing they do is just type into ChatGPT,

547
00:42:46,929 --> 00:42:48,129
which cafe do I go to?

548
00:42:48,629 --> 00:42:50,389
Or, you know, where's the car park?

549
00:42:50,609 --> 00:42:55,010
Or what used to be a Google search is now going through an AI tool.

550
00:42:55,409 --> 00:42:58,830
So it's ripe for monetizing eyeballs.

551
00:42:59,609 --> 00:43:02,790
And whether or not that marketplace actually arrives,

552
00:43:02,790 --> 00:43:05,350
I haven't seen it yet, wouldn't surprise me in the slightest.

553
00:43:05,350 --> 00:43:13,649
if you're doing hard work trying to be more efficient wanting to share private information

554
00:43:13,649 --> 00:43:19,830
then you're not going to want to be bombarded with adverts around those those subjects so i

555
00:43:19,830 --> 00:43:25,769
absolutely see this this opening up um gosh fascinating so so run so one thing we haven't

556
00:43:25,769 --> 00:43:30,790
touched on so far is uh the business albi that you've been working with now for a few years so

557
00:43:30,790 --> 00:43:36,550
So for anyone that doesn't know of Albi, what do you guys do and what's that journey been like?

558
00:43:38,310 --> 00:43:47,350
So Albi builds products, tools, services to make it easier for individuals and businesses to live on the Bitcoin standard.

559
00:43:47,350 --> 00:43:53,169
Basically, we think Bitcoin is the native currency of the Internet and in the world.

560
00:43:53,169 --> 00:43:58,409
and how can we bring more people over to the Bitcoin standard

561
00:43:58,409 --> 00:44:01,189
is kind of our overarching goal.

562
00:44:02,390 --> 00:44:06,050
And I think back when we were chatting in Bali, right,

563
00:44:06,089 --> 00:44:07,830
walking together on this mountain hike,

564
00:44:07,830 --> 00:44:12,909
back then things at Albi were very different.

565
00:44:13,629 --> 00:44:17,209
So back then we had a custodial wallet,

566
00:44:17,209 --> 00:44:23,249
And I think just the month before we celebrated our best month,

567
00:44:23,390 --> 00:44:25,609
we had over a million transactions.

568
00:44:28,209 --> 00:44:29,050
We...

569
00:44:29,050 --> 00:44:32,290
Sorry, my cat just jumped in.

570
00:44:33,649 --> 00:44:33,929
Hello.

571
00:44:35,470 --> 00:44:35,909
Let's see.

572
00:44:38,810 --> 00:44:40,609
They like joining video calls.

573
00:44:41,010 --> 00:44:41,129
Yeah.

574
00:44:41,129 --> 00:44:48,330
So, uh, we, we're kind of, we, we had to make a decision at that point.

575
00:44:48,330 --> 00:44:52,129
We're getting quite, quite, quite big, quite a lot of usage.

576
00:44:52,249 --> 00:44:54,570
Um, and we, we had two paths.

577
00:44:54,689 --> 00:45:01,010
We could either introduce KYC, um, become a regulated company, get the proper

578
00:45:01,010 --> 00:45:07,649
licenses across the world, um, which is very expensive and also all of our users

579
00:45:07,649 --> 00:45:09,649
would have to give personal information, right?

580
00:45:09,649 --> 00:45:13,089
that they're not money laundering or whatever it is.

581
00:45:13,089 --> 00:45:20,390
Or we could go the opposite route, which is to go self-custodial, self-sovereign.

582
00:45:20,390 --> 00:45:23,470
And this has kind of been the idea from the beginning, actually.

583
00:45:23,470 --> 00:45:28,089
The first product of Albi is like this browser extension that you can install

584
00:45:28,089 --> 00:45:29,749
and then you can make payments on the web.

585
00:45:29,749 --> 00:45:33,089
And back then, it connected to a Lightning node.

586
00:45:33,089 --> 00:45:37,310
The first part was self-custodial, actually.

587
00:45:37,310 --> 00:45:43,970
And we introduced this custodial service because it's easier for the average person.

588
00:45:45,929 --> 00:45:53,450
Getting Lightning to the mainstream a few years back, running individual nodes was not really ready.

589
00:45:55,609 --> 00:45:57,749
But things have changed a lot.

590
00:45:58,550 --> 00:46:01,109
We're in a much better position today.

591
00:46:01,109 --> 00:46:06,169
It's very easy to actually run a Lightning node now.

592
00:46:07,310 --> 00:46:15,790
So the last two years, that's been our focus to create this great foundational wallet where you

593
00:46:15,790 --> 00:46:21,310
own the keys to your money. You're a part of a decentralized network. You can open channels to

594
00:46:21,310 --> 00:46:28,030
anyone you like. You cannot be shut down. You cannot be stopped, which is completely different

595
00:46:28,030 --> 00:46:36,109
from like stable coins, for example. We can chat about that. But what is the difference between

596
00:46:36,109 --> 00:46:43,070
In Albi and other Lightning Wallets, we kind of focus on the idea that you have a Lightning

597
00:46:43,070 --> 00:46:45,990
Wallet connected to all your different applications.

598
00:46:45,990 --> 00:46:51,229
So we work on this open protocol called Nostra Wallet Connect.

599
00:46:51,229 --> 00:46:56,749
It's kind of a bit technical, but what it does is it gives all your applications the

600
00:46:56,749 --> 00:47:02,830
ability to have permissioned access to your Lightning Wallet.

601
00:47:02,830 --> 00:47:09,950
that the easy way to explain this is like LNVPS, which I talked about, right? Every month,

602
00:47:09,950 --> 00:47:17,629
it needs about $10 to pay for my machine. So I have my one LB hub and I have one connection that

603
00:47:17,629 --> 00:47:24,269
I give to LNVPS and every month they will do an auto renewal and it will take about $8 out of my

604
00:47:25,070 --> 00:47:31,310
Lightning wallet, but I give it a specific budget of only $10 and that's all that LNVPS can do.

605
00:47:32,830 --> 00:47:38,269
So the idea is instead of like adding Lightning wallets and balances to all

606
00:47:38,269 --> 00:47:43,070
these different apps you use, kind of like if you think about the old days, you have

607
00:47:43,070 --> 00:47:46,589
like a mobile phone plan, right? And you top up credits and then you have like

608
00:47:46,589 --> 00:47:52,429
balance on your phone plan. Instead, we think that people will have a single like

609
00:47:52,429 --> 00:47:56,350
control center and that's what we call LB Hub. It's your wallet that connects all

610
00:47:56,350 --> 00:48:00,589
these different apps. Your wallet has all the balance, but then you can create these

611
00:48:00,589 --> 00:48:08,109
like permission connections so i give one to lmvps and i give another one to ppq for my model

612
00:48:08,909 --> 00:48:18,429
model tokens and and other things like that so now we have this self-custodial wallet that can

613
00:48:18,429 --> 00:48:25,470
connect all these other apps and we have like a pretty great foundation we also did quite a few

614
00:48:25,470 --> 00:48:30,830
innovations compared to other self-custodial wallets that came before us. So we really tried

615
00:48:30,830 --> 00:48:39,310
to bring this self-custody more simple, more easy to normal everyday people who are not so technical.

616
00:48:39,310 --> 00:48:44,269
So things like being able to open channels, for example, now just with one click,

617
00:48:45,470 --> 00:48:52,510
you can basically purchase a channel, an incoming channel from some of our LSP partners. So all the

618
00:48:52,510 --> 00:48:55,570
The difficulties of figuring out like, okay, I need to channel.

619
00:48:56,129 --> 00:48:58,810
Um, I have to deposit on-chain Bitcoin.

620
00:48:59,070 --> 00:49:00,249
It's no longer the case.

621
00:49:00,629 --> 00:49:03,470
Um, I have to figure out how, who to open the channel to.

622
00:49:03,470 --> 00:49:04,510
That's no longer the case.

623
00:49:04,510 --> 00:49:07,330
All of those things we, we kind of take care of.

624
00:49:07,330 --> 00:49:12,890
So LB Hub now is like, it's a very strong foundation.

625
00:49:12,890 --> 00:49:16,629
It's powering a lot of our, the things we do in our business.

626
00:49:16,669 --> 00:49:20,129
All, all other side projects are powered by LB Hub.

627
00:49:20,129 --> 00:49:27,169
even our cloud subscription platform is actually all the subscription payments are going through

628
00:49:27,169 --> 00:49:32,129
the same protocol, NostraWallet Connect, making these subscription payments to a single hub that

629
00:49:32,129 --> 00:49:39,249
we run. And now we're actually doing a lot of experimentation, especially in AI and also on

630
00:49:39,249 --> 00:49:46,370
the developer side to improve developer experience, at the same time looking at new use cases

631
00:49:46,370 --> 00:49:50,649
is to really expand what LB Hub can be used for.

632
00:49:51,870 --> 00:49:53,510
And with the goal, right,

633
00:49:53,510 --> 00:49:57,350
to bring Bitcoin to the forefront,

634
00:49:58,729 --> 00:50:03,729
make Bitcoin the top way of using money, right?

635
00:50:04,330 --> 00:50:08,429
Not stable coins, not cryptocurrency, but Bitcoin.

636
00:50:08,429 --> 00:50:11,530
And for that, we have to provide the best user experience

637
00:50:11,530 --> 00:50:12,769
and solve real problems.

638
00:50:12,769 --> 00:50:15,269
So that's really what we're trying to do.

639
00:50:15,269 --> 00:50:21,749
brilliant I love it and I have to say I was going to do this on the call anyway I confess

640
00:50:21,749 --> 00:50:31,689
Roland I've had difficulties with my LB hub and it's been hard to maintain an open channel

641
00:50:31,689 --> 00:50:36,409
and I think I haven't funded it correctly or something along those lines and it's almost

642
00:50:36,409 --> 00:50:44,409
definitely user error rather than anything else but I would I would definitely have to

643
00:50:44,409 --> 00:50:50,169
admit that I haven't found that move from the custodial to the self-custodial very easy.

644
00:50:50,530 --> 00:50:55,810
Having been a customer of LBs from before, I really liked using it specifically for NOSTA,

645
00:50:55,810 --> 00:51:00,490
so for signing notes. And I'm like, great, this is perfect. So I just have one account with LB,

646
00:51:00,609 --> 00:51:06,129
and now I can use all of these different NOSTA apps to interact with. And I don't have to share

647
00:51:06,129 --> 00:51:10,490
my NSEC with a bunch of random software tools that I have no idea if they're going to disappear

648
00:51:10,490 --> 00:51:15,450
tomorrow I can just do it using Albi that was great but I found that the transfer to the self

649
00:51:15,450 --> 00:51:21,070
custodial wallet difficult because for some reason I keep getting the balance wrong and I haven't been

650
00:51:21,070 --> 00:51:25,370
able to like sign up with the payment plan properly had to put a card in and take my

651
00:51:25,370 --> 00:51:32,249
bitcoin out I don't know exactly what I was doing wrong but there's no doubt in my mind that the

652
00:51:32,249 --> 00:51:37,550
self custodial angle that you guys chose to go down like I'm still just experimenting with these

653
00:51:37,550 --> 00:51:55,484
things right Like any user would I looking at different things and what works and great route to go because the more permissionless we can make things the better Had you gone the other way you immediately become a kind of honeypot for regulators or someone that not nefarious actors

654
00:51:55,484 --> 00:52:00,484
But it's like, let's put some pressure on this ecosystem because we want to keep our central banking cartel going.

655
00:52:00,484 --> 00:52:05,484
Go and talk to those guys. You know what I mean? Where it's like, no, this market can't be stopped.

656
00:52:05,484 --> 00:52:11,544
stopped and if you try it's not going to make any difference and so i love tools like that because

657
00:52:11,544 --> 00:52:16,524
at the end of the day it's just money and why shouldn't i be able to spend my money with who

658
00:52:16,524 --> 00:52:23,724
i want when i want how i want um so yeah sorry to to to share that i had a bit of a tricky

659
00:52:23,724 --> 00:52:25,984
experience with that but that's certainly been the case for me

660
00:52:25,984 --> 00:52:30,844
yeah no and it's it's great to be honest here i think

661
00:52:30,844 --> 00:52:35,064
It hasn't been the smoothest path.

662
00:52:35,064 --> 00:52:39,964
I think we were a bit rushed two years ago when we made this transition and we were kind

663
00:52:39,964 --> 00:52:46,524
of forced to based on the kind of the explosion and how much usage we had.

664
00:52:46,524 --> 00:52:49,284
Our node was like growing.

665
00:52:49,284 --> 00:52:57,404
We had a lot of Bitcoin there that we kind of had to make the decision and get people

666
00:52:57,404 --> 00:53:00,784
to self custody as soon as possible.

667
00:53:00,784 --> 00:53:08,604
And so when we released Albi Hub, it was about six months of development, I guess, at that point.

668
00:53:09,724 --> 00:53:11,524
Definitely there were bugs, there were issues.

669
00:53:11,524 --> 00:53:23,944
And also just on the Albi account side, as you say, like billing issues and sometimes channels getting closed, all of those things were kind of definitely a bit bumpy.

670
00:53:25,064 --> 00:53:27,144
We've gotten a lot better since then.

671
00:53:27,464 --> 00:53:28,524
We're still not perfect.

672
00:53:28,524 --> 00:53:32,144
I think people still have to be a little bit more accepting, right,

673
00:53:32,364 --> 00:53:35,024
compared to a custodial solution.

674
00:53:35,764 --> 00:53:39,104
But I'm pretty optimistic.

675
00:53:39,364 --> 00:53:43,044
I think what we have now today is super reliable.

676
00:53:44,444 --> 00:53:49,884
And the amount of power it gives to the individual is hard to beat.

677
00:53:50,584 --> 00:53:56,764
So for sure, me personally, I actually like custodial solutions.

678
00:53:56,764 --> 00:54:03,404
If I was going to recommend to someone who's just getting started with Bitcoin, I'd just say, use Walletist or Toshi.

679
00:54:03,684 --> 00:54:05,324
Use whatever the simplest one.

680
00:54:06,244 --> 00:54:07,144
I don't care, right?

681
00:54:07,264 --> 00:54:20,244
Like, if you only have $10 or $100, then why are you going to go into self-custody and have more confusion or a poor experience?

682
00:54:20,244 --> 00:54:26,844
the goal right to onboard somebody is is to get them to use bitcoin for the first time to have

683
00:54:26,844 --> 00:54:32,804
that magic experience and take some time to learn and when they're ready when they have more money

684
00:54:32,804 --> 00:54:37,744
allocated into bitcoin when they're actually spending and receiving more money then move to

685
00:54:37,744 --> 00:54:47,124
a self self custody approach so i think alb hub today is still not geared towards beginners it's

686
00:54:47,124 --> 00:54:51,204
still very much an intermediate level product.

687
00:54:51,204 --> 00:54:54,084
But I think going back to OpenClaw,

688
00:54:54,084 --> 00:55:00,324
I think one interesting thing which we're working on now,

689
00:55:00,324 --> 00:55:04,724
which could help solve some of these issues is that

690
00:55:04,724 --> 00:55:09,924
we're basically building a way where your agent can manage your wallet.

691
00:55:09,924 --> 00:55:14,404
So you don't even have to touch the user interface anymore.

692
00:55:14,404 --> 00:55:18,464
It can set up your Albi Hub for you, your wallet for you.

693
00:55:18,624 --> 00:55:19,864
It can manage your channels.

694
00:55:20,444 --> 00:55:21,904
It can do everything.

695
00:55:22,824 --> 00:55:24,064
It can recommend you.

696
00:55:24,204 --> 00:55:26,424
If you're having troubles, it can figure it out, right?

697
00:55:26,444 --> 00:55:29,224
It has full knowledge of how Albi Hub works.

698
00:55:29,324 --> 00:55:30,184
It can teach you things.

699
00:55:30,364 --> 00:55:34,024
It can show you, okay, have you done a backup yet?

700
00:55:34,024 --> 00:55:39,264
You need to write down your 12-word recovery phrase just for a last resort, right?

701
00:55:39,264 --> 00:55:50,064
like if um so these kind of things i i think could be a huge um huge like uh ux improvement for the

702
00:55:50,064 --> 00:55:57,744
average user um and at the same thing same time i think because more people are choosing to run like

703
00:55:57,744 --> 00:56:04,304
a dedicated machine for open core they already have the ability to self-host albi hub because

704
00:56:04,304 --> 00:56:09,104
it's just another app they already have this machine available they see the benefit of running

705
00:56:09,104 --> 00:56:14,464
a personal assistant there they can just add the wallet and i think this really lowers like the

706
00:56:14,464 --> 00:56:20,624
onboarding barrier for people to run a self-custodial uh lightning node so i'm i'm i'm pretty

707
00:56:20,624 --> 00:56:26,944
excited there as well awesome and it's just it's fascinating stuff this so uh ronan i normally

708
00:56:26,944 --> 00:56:34,624
shoot for 60 minutes so do you have another 5 10 minutes sure yep yeah okay um and we'll wrap it

709
00:56:34,624 --> 00:56:41,064
it up basically after this last question, but I'm intrigued by the growth that you're seeing. So

710
00:56:41,064 --> 00:56:47,884
the Lightning Network is obviously evolving very, very fast. What are you guys seeing? Like,

711
00:56:48,024 --> 00:56:52,424
you know, you're at the very coalface of this industry, building a business like Albi.

712
00:56:54,024 --> 00:56:58,724
It's super exciting what you're seeing, I assume. What does it feel like on a day-to-day basis?

713
00:56:58,724 --> 00:57:04,404
like transactions up, user growth up, people all over the world while connecting in?

714
00:57:04,524 --> 00:57:05,584
How does it actually look?

715
00:57:07,684 --> 00:57:15,064
Yeah, so we're actually quite in a bit different situation.

716
00:57:15,244 --> 00:57:15,864
What can I say?

717
00:57:16,204 --> 00:57:18,304
We run an open source project, right?

718
00:57:18,624 --> 00:57:20,724
So people can run Albi Hub.

719
00:57:20,804 --> 00:57:22,604
They don't even have to connect their Albi account,

720
00:57:22,744 --> 00:57:24,324
and we have no idea what they're doing.

721
00:57:24,824 --> 00:57:26,964
We have no idea how many payments they're using,

722
00:57:26,964 --> 00:57:30,304
how much Bitcoin they store, they can run completely private.

723
00:57:30,304 --> 00:57:32,964
So there's a trade off, right?

724
00:57:32,964 --> 00:57:37,484
You can run in that mode or you can connect your Albi account and you get email notifications,

725
00:57:37,484 --> 00:57:43,044
you get a lightning address, you get encrypted automatic backups and those sort of things.

726
00:57:43,044 --> 00:57:47,164
So that part we can see.

727
00:57:47,164 --> 00:57:51,424
But I would recommend to follow.

728
00:57:51,424 --> 00:58:00,224
a river report that came out recently um which yeah a huge increase in lightning adoption um

729
00:58:00,224 --> 00:58:09,264
i think now 0.1 percent of what visa is processing but if we do another 10x from here where i think

730
00:58:09,264 --> 00:58:14,864
it's already like since a few years ago we've already done one 10x so if we do another 10x from

731
00:58:14,864 --> 00:58:25,664
here, then we're actually getting, starting to, you know, compete with these other solutions.

732
00:58:25,664 --> 00:58:30,864
So Lightning adoption is very fast going up.

733
00:58:30,864 --> 00:58:35,864
I can't remember the exact number, so I don't want to say the wrong thing.

734
00:58:35,864 --> 00:58:38,864
I can go look it up, no worries.

735
00:58:38,864 --> 00:58:41,624
Yeah, definitely there's a huge increase.

736
00:58:41,964 --> 00:58:47,824
And at the same time, I think we're in a quite critical situation

737
00:58:47,824 --> 00:58:51,204
where there's two competing protocols.

738
00:58:51,784 --> 00:58:55,544
So there's like Bitcoin for AT&T payments.

739
00:58:55,544 --> 00:58:59,824
And then there's also like the more, there's one called X402.

740
00:58:59,984 --> 00:59:04,044
So the Bitcoin one is called L402 and it's Bitcoin only.

741
00:59:04,564 --> 00:59:08,464
And then there's X402, which supports all different currencies.

742
00:59:08,864 --> 00:59:12,124
Albi is actually supporting both of those.

743
00:59:13,564 --> 00:59:16,964
And we're looking into experimenting with them both.

744
00:59:18,464 --> 00:59:21,364
We build open protocols and we're building on open protocols,

745
00:59:21,524 --> 00:59:23,524
so it doesn't really matter either way.

746
00:59:23,744 --> 00:59:28,144
But we would like to see more people shift to use Bitcoin, right?

747
00:59:28,144 --> 00:59:34,144
Because even if stablecoins are fast, they can still be censored.

748
00:59:34,884 --> 00:59:37,244
You can still get your accounts frozen.

749
00:59:37,244 --> 00:59:43,804
And at the end of the day, my personal opinion is everything is going to zero against Bitcoin.

750
00:59:43,804 --> 00:59:48,684
Right. So even if it's called a stable coin today, I think it's more like a temporary solution.

751
00:59:48,684 --> 01:00:03,044
It's not going to be very stable in the long term. So long answer short, definitely lightning adoption is going up and it's going up hundreds of percent every year.

752
01:00:03,044 --> 01:00:20,044
So that's really exciting. We can also see like with the Bitcoin fee rate, right, it's gone way down like one set per V-byte because so much of the activity that was on-chain before has now been shifted into the Lightning network.

753
01:00:21,524 --> 01:00:22,124
Interesting.

754
01:00:22,124 --> 01:00:29,564
And yeah, I think every day more like, what is it, Square Cash App supporting Lightning

755
01:00:29,564 --> 01:00:35,544
transactions in the US, more exchanges supporting Lightning Network directly.

756
01:00:35,544 --> 01:00:42,264
So I think Lightning is definitely on a good path and I believe it's going to be the payment

757
01:00:42,264 --> 01:00:44,224
rails of the future.

758
01:00:44,224 --> 01:00:50,424
Definitely, it's still a very small market compared to credit card payments, but it's

759
01:00:50,424 --> 01:00:59,464
definitely growing and then at a fast pace yeah and small small but different you know it's it's

760
01:00:59,464 --> 01:01:03,864
when you really start thinking about what what is a bearer asset and what does it mean to have

761
01:01:03,864 --> 01:01:10,104
counterparty risk and what does it mean to have um you know speed of transaction versus security

762
01:01:10,104 --> 01:01:13,704
and you start looking into this it's like well just it's a much better form of money

763
01:01:13,704 --> 01:01:17,304
so it's inevitable in my opinion

764
01:01:17,304 --> 01:01:18,944
that's where things will go

765
01:01:18,944 --> 01:01:22,244
but the status quo is not going to

766
01:01:22,244 --> 01:01:23,764
wander off and say

767
01:01:23,764 --> 01:01:24,684
don't worry guys

768
01:01:24,684 --> 01:01:25,924
you take all our business

769
01:01:25,924 --> 01:01:26,464
no problem

770
01:01:26,464 --> 01:01:28,024
so I'm definitely expecting

771
01:01:28,024 --> 01:01:29,944
a bit of a to and fro

772
01:01:29,944 --> 01:01:31,284
for a long time yet to come

773
01:01:31,284 --> 01:01:33,044
well Roland thank you so much

774
01:01:33,044 --> 01:01:34,524
for sharing everything today

775
01:01:34,524 --> 01:01:35,564
is there

776
01:01:35,564 --> 01:01:36,604
just to hand it to you

777
01:01:36,604 --> 01:01:37,224
is there anything else

778
01:01:37,224 --> 01:01:38,604
that you haven't walked through

779
01:01:38,604 --> 01:01:39,504
that you wanted to share

780
01:01:39,504 --> 01:01:40,964
or anything that you wanted

781
01:01:40,964 --> 01:01:41,844
to increase upon?

782
01:01:41,844 --> 01:01:50,644
uh yeah i'm i mean kind of in line with the stuff the innovations we're doing with ai um which which

783
01:01:50,644 --> 01:01:57,924
i can sum up quickly so yeah go for it i mean take as long as you like um yeah we we have this thing

784
01:01:57,924 --> 01:02:06,004
called ai skills which basically gives your ai agent whatever you use open uh open ai board um

785
01:02:06,004 --> 01:02:15,004
specific knowledge of how Albee works and what this means is you can basically with a simple prompt build an application that has Bitcoin payments.

786
01:02:15,004 --> 01:02:26,004
And it will actually do it right now, which I think this year is like, there's been a huge change in the quality of the AI models coming out that is actually possible.

787
01:02:26,004 --> 01:02:31,004
Combined with these skills that Albee maintains to actually build these apps.

788
01:02:31,004 --> 01:02:39,084
and the second one is we have the skill which basically gives ai agents the ability to

789
01:02:39,084 --> 01:02:45,404
use a bitcoin wallet to make and receive payments so both of those are available and basically just

790
01:02:45,404 --> 01:02:51,164
you do just copy one line and give it to your your agent and it can basically then it kind of

791
01:02:51,164 --> 01:02:56,724
installs the knowledge it's like you know in the matrix when neo learns kung fu right it's kind of

792
01:02:56,724 --> 01:02:59,004
like that. You give it that knowledge.

793
01:02:59,004 --> 01:03:00,624
Great movie.

794
01:03:00,624 --> 01:03:04,444
I think these are really two cool innovations we've done recently.

795
01:03:04,444 --> 01:03:10,644
And also regarding the developer side, we've actually introduced a new thing,

796
01:03:10,644 --> 01:03:18,024
which is a way for AIs when they're building these apps to actually fully

797
01:03:18,024 --> 01:03:21,624
test payments, like the whole flow without human interaction.

798
01:03:21,624 --> 01:03:25,704
So they can basically spin up these like throwaway dummy wallets.

799
01:03:25,704 --> 01:03:31,084
They can actually, they're powered by LB Hub and all the features of different types of payments,

800
01:03:31,324 --> 01:03:35,844
receiving money, sending money, listing transactions, all those things are possible.

801
01:03:37,764 --> 01:03:43,424
So for anyone building or who wants to try out building something related to Bitcoin,

802
01:03:43,964 --> 01:03:49,064
I think today is definitely 100 times easier than it's ever been.

803
01:03:49,064 --> 01:03:50,284
You don't have to be a programmer.

804
01:03:50,284 --> 01:03:57,864
it you don't have to really all you need to do is take five or ten minutes you just put in this

805
01:03:57,864 --> 01:04:02,824
prompt you can even use replit or something you you don't have to set up any development environment

806
01:04:02,824 --> 01:04:09,264
if you have an idea to build some something bitcoin related definitely try it out and

807
01:04:09,264 --> 01:04:16,244
yeah if you want to learn more about albie get albie.com feel free to contact contact us

808
01:04:16,244 --> 01:04:22,404
us as well if you have any questions we have we have a support um support link directly on the

809
01:04:22,404 --> 01:04:27,384
site um happy to hear what people want to build where they get stuck uh we're always trying to

810
01:04:27,384 --> 01:04:34,484
make things easier uh for the for the average person so um awesome ronan it strikes me just

811
01:04:34,484 --> 01:04:41,184
before we close up so when i think about you know famous andreessen quote of like software's

812
01:04:41,184 --> 01:04:48,324
eating the world. And then the AI boom of recent times where it's like, well, actually software is

813
01:04:48,324 --> 01:04:56,804
eating software. And so the trend for value creation for so long was like, don't look at

814
01:04:56,804 --> 01:05:05,244
hardware, do software, you know, massive scale, huge multiples to be made. And the more that I,

815
01:05:05,244 --> 01:05:11,624
I guess got closer to that, got burnt, and then moved further away for it due to, in many ways,

816
01:05:11,704 --> 01:05:19,364
Bitcoin, I realized a lot of that kind of Silicon Valley VC funded hype cycle is a symptom of the

817
01:05:19,364 --> 01:05:25,344
money printer. Like, how is it that millions of dollars can be thrown at an idea with no traction?

818
01:05:25,724 --> 01:05:31,824
Like, it doesn't make sense. It's because money is cheap. If anything, money is valueless. And so

819
01:05:31,824 --> 01:05:45,324
So it strikes me that this AI wave that we're witnessing now is obviously completely reinventing how you create software products, as you've touched on in multiple different ways over this conversation.

820
01:05:46,164 --> 01:05:54,764
But as a software builder, entrepreneur, investor, in my case, like, actually, it's just making you better at your job.

821
01:05:54,764 --> 01:06:01,684
so where is like is there a defensibility angle that is obvious to you or when you're talking

822
01:06:01,684 --> 01:06:09,444
about these ai tools that you're bringing into your lb ecosystem like they just add value for

823
01:06:09,444 --> 01:06:15,924
the customer they add value for you guys as a team correct it's not necessarily eating your business

824
01:06:15,924 --> 01:06:24,084
no and and people can say yeah okay we have ai now we can build a product in a day or or a week

825
01:06:24,084 --> 01:06:31,524
like where's where's your like competitive mode right but i think there is a network effect there's

826
01:06:31,524 --> 01:06:42,644
there's trust involved there's you get uh you know faithful users of of a service or a company who's

827
01:06:42,644 --> 01:06:49,284
actually building something you believe in um and i think as long as we keep innovating we can we

828
01:06:49,284 --> 01:06:55,124
can bring in these users and we can see it today with OpenClaw. OpenClaw was invented and then

829
01:06:56,564 --> 01:07:02,404
a few days later there's XeroClaw, NullClaw, NanoClaw, all these different clones. But

830
01:07:05,444 --> 01:07:12,484
the people using them is so much smaller than OpenClaw. The network effect is the real thing.

831
01:07:12,484 --> 01:07:18,944
the respect of the developer behind the project and their vision.

832
01:07:19,684 --> 01:07:22,844
And you know that they were the one who came up with this idea

833
01:07:22,844 --> 01:07:24,964
and they are going to push it forward.

834
01:07:25,164 --> 01:07:28,224
They are going to bring these new ideas to the world.

835
01:07:28,864 --> 01:07:34,684
So I think a lot of people follow these companies.

836
01:07:35,224 --> 01:07:37,624
They don't just switch because, okay,

837
01:07:37,624 --> 01:07:40,784
someone else created a new product in one day

838
01:07:40,784 --> 01:07:43,204
and they sell it for half the price.

839
01:07:43,384 --> 01:07:44,924
I don't think it will be like that.

840
01:07:46,304 --> 01:07:47,164
Yeah, it's funny.

841
01:07:47,244 --> 01:07:49,604
And I think there's also a sense of,

842
01:07:50,484 --> 01:07:52,504
like, where is content valuable?

843
01:07:53,204 --> 01:07:56,344
Well, content is a way of garnering trust.

844
01:07:56,804 --> 01:07:59,624
If you're creating content over a sustained period of time

845
01:07:59,624 --> 01:08:02,304
that people come across for whatever reason,

846
01:08:03,084 --> 01:08:05,544
they're not going to suddenly reach out to you

847
01:08:05,544 --> 01:08:07,524
with a question or with an opportunity

848
01:08:07,524 --> 01:08:10,484
because you're an AI channel on YouTube.

849
01:08:10,784 --> 01:08:17,004
So to echo you, there's definitely a sense there of people can feel the proof of work.

850
01:08:17,424 --> 01:08:18,424
They value that.

851
01:08:18,524 --> 01:08:19,764
They grow to trust it.

852
01:08:20,244 --> 01:08:25,924
And therefore, yes, you could go and use an equivalent to the Albi wallet that interacts with Albi Hub.

853
01:08:26,404 --> 01:08:28,084
But actually, why would you?

854
01:08:28,424 --> 01:08:30,524
Because it works totally fine and you trust those guys.

855
01:08:31,544 --> 01:08:31,964
Yeah, cool.

856
01:08:32,124 --> 01:08:33,104
Okay, awesome.

857
01:08:33,524 --> 01:08:36,884
Well, Roland, I don't have any more questions for this particular conversation.

858
01:08:36,884 --> 01:08:39,644
Really appreciate you coming and joining me on the podcast.

859
01:08:39,644 --> 01:08:41,744
and great to spend some time talking together.

860
01:08:41,844 --> 01:08:43,124
So thank you so much for your time today.

861
01:08:44,544 --> 01:08:45,184
You too.

862
01:08:45,344 --> 01:08:47,584
Thanks for the opportunity to be on the show.

863
01:08:47,924 --> 01:08:49,104
I really enjoyed it.

864
01:08:49,884 --> 01:08:50,524
My pleasure.

865
01:08:50,644 --> 01:08:51,084
Thank you, Roland.

866
01:08:51,084 --> 01:08:52,104
Cool.