1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:03,880 Well, I guess the question is like, why Bitcoin, right? 2 00:00:04,920 --> 00:00:05,160 Yeah. 3 00:00:05,240 --> 00:00:06,140 I think if- 4 00:00:06,140 --> 00:00:06,720 Is that freedom money? 5 00:00:07,140 --> 00:00:07,280 Yeah. 6 00:00:07,280 --> 00:00:08,700 The rest of it's just pretending. 7 00:00:09,620 --> 00:00:14,240 Yeah, I mean, with other currencies, you can get censored, right? 8 00:00:14,320 --> 00:00:16,820 You can get your funds taken from you. 9 00:00:16,820 --> 00:00:18,800 They can be inflated away over time. 10 00:00:20,140 --> 00:00:25,960 So if agents actually want a currency backed by energy that doesn't deflate, 11 00:00:26,140 --> 00:00:27,740 well, I mean, we're in the middle of the bear market. 12 00:00:27,740 --> 00:00:31,480 So it's very much a long-term vision. 13 00:00:32,220 --> 00:00:34,600 It's emotional deflation, but not monetary deflation. 14 00:00:35,080 --> 00:00:42,920 So I think, of course, all of us as Bitcoiners, we're pushing as hard as we can to get agents to use Bitcoin because we think it's the best. 15 00:00:43,060 --> 00:00:46,540 But in reality, agents are using everything under the sun, right? 16 00:00:50,720 --> 00:00:52,220 Roland, how are you, sir? Welcome. 17 00:00:53,240 --> 00:00:55,300 I'm great. Thanks for having me on the show, Sean. 18 00:00:55,300 --> 00:01:03,060 absolutely i know it is well what time is it you're where you are uh 11 p.m oh man i hear 19 00:01:03,060 --> 00:01:06,720 cricket yeah i hear the crickets and i know it's i know it's late on the other side of the world so 20 00:01:06,720 --> 00:01:12,500 i really appreciate it although i imagine you're uh you're accustomed to late nights uh in your 21 00:01:12,500 --> 00:01:20,900 line of work well hey so we will uh i will uh provide you know backdrop of course on all b 22 00:01:20,900 --> 00:01:30,260 I'm a big fan. I run Hub on, as I said, my trusty Umbral here in the corner and have, you know, 23 00:01:30,380 --> 00:01:38,400 I think I sent you some links. I've wired up Nostra Wallet Connect payments from my website 24 00:01:38,400 --> 00:01:43,140 over an edge function to my Hub. I mean, you know, I'm in deep. I love the stuff. 25 00:01:43,620 --> 00:01:47,680 Not everybody else will be listening or watching, so we'll go through some of the basics. But 26 00:01:47,680 --> 00:02:10,240 Let's sort of start here. I think it's one of the most interesting points in the arc so far of Albee as a company and as a team is the decision in January of last year to shut down your custodial wallet and gracefully, graciously offer users the option to move over to self-custody or frankly, you know, go find another product. 27 00:02:10,240 --> 00:02:16,480 my words, not yours. This is a very specific sort of high stakes story related to trust, 28 00:02:16,560 --> 00:02:21,140 which is the theme, of course, of this show, which is a company choosing principle over 29 00:02:21,140 --> 00:02:27,540 convenience. And so, you know, walk me through rolling that decision to kill off the custodial 30 00:02:27,540 --> 00:02:32,880 wallet last year. You had users who depended upon it. You know, I certainly saw the buzz and 31 00:02:32,880 --> 00:02:39,420 the noise on Noster. What was it that ultimately brought the team to say, hey, we'd rather face 32 00:02:39,420 --> 00:02:42,080 the wrath of users and customers 33 00:02:42,080 --> 00:02:43,200 than hold their keys. 34 00:02:44,560 --> 00:02:45,800 Yeah, so this actually started 35 00:02:45,800 --> 00:02:48,240 way before January of last year. 36 00:02:48,780 --> 00:02:51,900 We launched LB Hub about two years ago now, 37 00:02:52,140 --> 00:02:52,500 I think. 38 00:02:54,320 --> 00:02:55,800 And the reason why we did it, 39 00:02:55,920 --> 00:02:58,260 well, it's actually quite a positive thing. 40 00:02:58,260 --> 00:03:01,760 We kind of got a bit too big. 41 00:03:02,240 --> 00:03:04,100 At one point, I think we were processing 42 00:03:04,100 --> 00:03:05,820 over a million transactions a month. 43 00:03:05,820 --> 00:03:10,480 we had a lot of people running the custodial wallet 44 00:03:10,480 --> 00:03:14,480 not just individuals but businesses as well 45 00:03:14,480 --> 00:03:17,900 and some of the businesses were 46 00:03:17,900 --> 00:03:22,020 possibly doing some questionable stuff 47 00:03:22,020 --> 00:03:27,480 might not be completely aligned with 48 00:03:27,480 --> 00:03:31,360 our vision but actually if we look back even further 49 00:03:31,360 --> 00:03:34,780 towards Albi where it really began with the Albi extension 50 00:03:34,780 --> 00:03:37,860 the first thing the LB extension could do 51 00:03:37,860 --> 00:03:40,540 was connect to your own LND Lightning node 52 00:03:40,540 --> 00:03:44,600 it was a self-custodial product right from the beginning 53 00:03:44,600 --> 00:03:49,540 but the reason why we added this custodial solution 54 00:03:49,540 --> 00:03:50,840 is because at the time 55 00:03:50,840 --> 00:03:54,080 it was very difficult for the average person 56 00:03:54,080 --> 00:03:56,020 to have a self-custodial node 57 00:03:56,020 --> 00:04:00,860 so we had this thing called LND Hub 58 00:04:00,860 --> 00:04:02,420 and the idea was actually 59 00:04:02,420 --> 00:04:04,540 even then it was an open protocol 60 00:04:04,540 --> 00:04:08,740 we were hoping that more people would spin up these L&D hub things, 61 00:04:08,880 --> 00:04:13,520 which basically mean you can have one L&D node shared by many users. 62 00:04:15,320 --> 00:04:16,460 The Uncle Jim model? 63 00:04:16,900 --> 00:04:22,000 Yeah, yeah, which we've actually kind of come back to a little bit with LV Hub, 64 00:04:22,520 --> 00:04:24,700 but in a slightly different format. 65 00:04:27,220 --> 00:04:30,200 But yeah, so that didn't really happen as intended, 66 00:04:30,200 --> 00:04:35,360 or maybe self-custodial lightning took a little bit longer than we thought, right? 67 00:04:35,500 --> 00:04:39,680 So, yeah, the custodial wallet became really popular. 68 00:04:42,740 --> 00:04:48,040 And then, you know, in the U.S., Phoenix going out of the U.S., 69 00:04:48,040 --> 00:04:53,180 wallet of Satoshi shutting down, we also kind of had to make a decision, right? 70 00:04:53,280 --> 00:04:56,280 And we had two possible paths. 71 00:04:56,280 --> 00:04:59,680 one was to introduce KYC 72 00:04:59,680 --> 00:05:04,900 and go the fully regulated route 73 00:05:04,900 --> 00:05:08,980 or we could go back to self-custody 74 00:05:08,980 --> 00:05:12,320 and push self-sovereignty 75 00:05:12,320 --> 00:05:15,040 which we chatted in the team 76 00:05:15,040 --> 00:05:18,740 and that's what we want to be, right? 77 00:05:18,800 --> 00:05:20,540 We want to be self-sovereign Bitcoiners. 78 00:05:22,000 --> 00:05:24,700 We want to build open source software 79 00:05:24,700 --> 00:05:26,080 on open protocols 80 00:05:26,080 --> 00:05:38,120 um anyone can run it so yeah and and actually the thing that made all this possible um at that time 81 00:05:38,120 --> 00:05:44,360 was also that nostril kind of came out nostril was very very new at the time um and they had just 82 00:05:44,360 --> 00:05:52,760 introduced zaps so um basically you can you can uh request a lightning invoice from from another 83 00:05:52,760 --> 00:06:00,940 user in Nostra and then and then and pay it with your lightning wallet um and one of the one of the 84 00:06:00,940 --> 00:06:06,600 things that was not so user friendly at the time is that if if you want to zap someone you would 85 00:06:06,600 --> 00:06:10,680 get this you would request an invoice from someone and then you would have to open up like a separate 86 00:06:10,680 --> 00:06:16,720 lightning wallet um or maybe you don't even have a lightning wallet um and this was kind of the 87 00:06:16,720 --> 00:06:23,120 origination of this thing called Nostra Wallet Connect, which is basically you could stay inside 88 00:06:23,120 --> 00:06:29,400 your Nostra client, push the zap button, and it would make the zap payment without you having to 89 00:06:29,400 --> 00:06:34,640 go to a different wallet. Instead, your Nostra client would remotely connect to your Lightning 90 00:06:34,640 --> 00:06:40,960 wallet. And so this simple... And I think it's worth noting, you know, we fast forward and 91 00:06:40,960 --> 00:06:47,420 you tap one button and I send you 21 sats because you posted something cool, X and the rest of them 92 00:06:47,420 --> 00:06:52,340 are still wrestling with this. And I think for those who maybe aren't so deep in it, it's really 93 00:06:52,340 --> 00:06:58,080 worth calling out that this is what, Roland, two years ago, I guess, that the zap spec sort of, 94 00:06:58,080 --> 00:07:02,620 you know, started to take shape. And so again, here we are two years ago, two years rather later 95 00:07:02,620 --> 00:07:08,540 on Noster, you know, zapping each other like crazy, sending actual money, sending real value, 96 00:07:08,540 --> 00:07:10,940 literally at the tap of a thumb. 97 00:07:11,740 --> 00:07:17,160 And the rest of the world is, you know, I don't know, 98 00:07:17,560 --> 00:07:19,320 issuing Stripe invoices. 99 00:07:19,820 --> 00:07:22,540 But anyway, so, you know, kudos is what I'm trying to say, 100 00:07:22,580 --> 00:07:23,240 but please go ahead. 101 00:07:23,960 --> 00:07:24,200 Thanks. 102 00:07:25,060 --> 00:07:28,440 So what we realized is Notchewallet Connect can be 103 00:07:28,440 --> 00:07:29,700 way more than just apps. 104 00:07:29,700 --> 00:07:34,640 Actually, it's like, it's basically just allowing an application 105 00:07:34,640 --> 00:07:37,420 to seamlessly have some sort of access, 106 00:07:37,560 --> 00:07:41,760 like budgeted access to a Lightning wallet or a Lightning nodes. 107 00:07:42,760 --> 00:07:46,200 Actually, we can apply the same idea of Nostra Wallet Connect 108 00:07:46,200 --> 00:07:49,300 to create a self-custodial wallet. 109 00:07:49,840 --> 00:07:52,720 And because one of the awesome things about Albion 110 00:07:52,720 --> 00:07:55,360 that's kind of different to like Phoenix Wallet of Satoshi 111 00:07:55,360 --> 00:07:56,860 and a lot of the other wallets, right, 112 00:07:56,920 --> 00:08:00,480 is we focus on this idea that you can bring your wallet 113 00:08:00,480 --> 00:08:02,760 to all these different applications like podcasting. 114 00:08:02,760 --> 00:08:08,820 you can stream saps to podcasters right um that's where mine go right now for anyone who 115 00:08:08,820 --> 00:08:14,340 ends up seeing this and and streaming that's that they'll they'll land in the corner over here 116 00:08:14,340 --> 00:08:22,320 yeah so so basically this simple experiment of doing zaps and and like doing something fun 117 00:08:22,320 --> 00:08:30,580 actually we started this open protocol and and now today there are so many different wallets and 118 00:08:30,580 --> 00:08:33,120 applications built on Nostra Wallet Connect. 119 00:08:33,300 --> 00:08:35,460 And it's actually what made our B-Hub possible. 120 00:08:35,580 --> 00:08:41,180 And it made our transition to a self-custodial wallet possible without having to 121 00:08:41,180 --> 00:08:43,880 sacrifice those, those sort of features. 122 00:08:45,300 --> 00:08:46,520 Yeah. I mean, I think of, 123 00:08:46,520 --> 00:08:50,940 I think of Nostra Wallet Connect is like the USB-C of Lightning payments. 124 00:08:51,660 --> 00:08:55,480 You know, you just plug, plug virtually anything in and you're good to go. 125 00:08:56,740 --> 00:09:00,180 Yeah. Yeah. So, but yeah, 126 00:09:00,180 --> 00:09:01,740 So we still had this shutdown. 127 00:09:02,100 --> 00:09:06,920 We are actually trying to onboard people onto AlbiHub for the full year. 128 00:09:09,640 --> 00:09:13,840 And AlbiHub, compared to the other Lightning nodes, 129 00:09:13,940 --> 00:09:19,640 we really kind of tried to focus to make it easier for a normal user. 130 00:09:19,640 --> 00:09:24,860 So even though it's self-sovereign, we tried to address some of the pain points. 131 00:09:24,860 --> 00:09:31,540 like you must have a channel right to be to be self-sovereign to have your own lightning node 132 00:09:31,540 --> 00:09:36,720 connect to the lightning network but who do you have a channel with um so we so we partners 133 00:09:36,720 --> 00:09:41,700 partnered with different lsps so you just with one click you can you can buy a channel and 134 00:09:41,700 --> 00:09:48,260 and those sort of things um there's still costs involved right there are a lot of lb users who 135 00:09:48,260 --> 00:09:51,520 actually were not economic Albi users. 136 00:09:51,860 --> 00:09:53,600 So they had a few hundred sets 137 00:09:53,600 --> 00:09:56,960 and there were a lot of people who complained, right? 138 00:09:57,000 --> 00:10:01,480 Because they did not actually want to pay to use Albi. 139 00:10:01,600 --> 00:10:03,540 They did not want to have to pay to open a channel. 140 00:10:04,800 --> 00:10:06,040 Well, in fact, I was going to ask, 141 00:10:06,620 --> 00:10:07,380 let me, sorry, Roland, 142 00:10:07,480 --> 00:10:10,080 just to kind of zoom in a bit, I guess. 143 00:10:10,520 --> 00:10:13,420 So when you made that announcement, 144 00:10:13,540 --> 00:10:14,560 which again, I think, correct me, 145 00:10:14,560 --> 00:10:15,820 was January of last year, 146 00:10:15,820 --> 00:10:23,860 how do users react what did the support inbox look like yeah it was it was challenging i mean 147 00:10:23,860 --> 00:10:32,280 we for six months or even a year beforehand we're trying to offboard our users right and but there 148 00:10:32,280 --> 00:10:38,920 are a lot of users who just did not do anything so at some point we just have to say okay now from 149 00:10:38,920 --> 00:10:46,080 now on you cannot use your custodial wallet if if you actually want you can you can basically 150 00:10:46,080 --> 00:10:55,900 get your funds out following a certain process but um yeah so yeah inertia is a thing yeah 151 00:10:55,900 --> 00:11:02,860 for about a year afterwards we still had people emailing and saying uh i've been i've been in i've 152 00:11:02,860 --> 00:11:08,780 been in prison for the last two years making out these funny stories uh i need i need the money to 153 00:11:08,780 --> 00:11:16,700 feed my cat you know um okay credit props for props for props for creativity i guess yeah so 154 00:11:16,700 --> 00:11:23,500 anyway we so we've still allowed them to like um yeah i mean we still have the funds right so we 155 00:11:23,500 --> 00:11:29,840 we let them basically connect the wallet through nostril connect um withdraw the funds and then 156 00:11:29,840 --> 00:11:35,920 shut down the account basically yeah um but well so most companies you know i think and this is 157 00:11:35,920 --> 00:11:38,900 what's interesting to me and you've already touched on this but but i want to come back to it 158 00:11:38,900 --> 00:11:42,860 you know most companies in bitcoin talk about self-custody but they keep offering the easy 159 00:11:42,860 --> 00:11:49,440 custodial option why didn't you just choose to offer both i i think there's a few reasons um 160 00:11:49,440 --> 00:11:56,220 one it like we're we're a quite small team we're a startup right we have limited resources and we 161 00:11:56,220 --> 00:12:02,480 we have to we have to make a clear decision on the path we want to go down there's one another one is 162 00:12:02,480 --> 00:12:07,100 the regulatory thing, right? We have to get all these licenses. We have to work with people 163 00:12:07,100 --> 00:12:13,380 to run this custodial product. It's not actually that easy if you want to do it legally. 164 00:12:14,540 --> 00:12:17,920 It is, let's be clear, it's criminally expensive. As you and I talked about, 165 00:12:18,000 --> 00:12:20,960 I've been in that business. It is criminally expensive. 166 00:12:22,020 --> 00:12:27,120 Yeah. And the last one, just as I said, I guess it's related to the first two points, but 167 00:12:27,120 --> 00:12:36,320 um yeah we at least i'll be uh i mean all of us we have slightly different views but 168 00:12:36,320 --> 00:12:44,740 um we we all want to be self-sovereign we we hold our own bitcoin right we we hold our own keys 169 00:12:44,740 --> 00:12:50,720 that's that's what we believe in um we built we build this software for ourselves we use it 170 00:12:50,720 --> 00:12:54,360 and ideally our users are the same, right? 171 00:12:54,500 --> 00:12:56,220 They value these things. 172 00:12:56,500 --> 00:12:58,660 That's what we owe, at least. 173 00:12:58,980 --> 00:13:00,780 Well, and yes, absolutely. 174 00:13:01,020 --> 00:13:02,700 And I think, again, for those who may be 175 00:13:02,700 --> 00:13:04,060 kind of on the edge of this, 176 00:13:04,380 --> 00:13:09,420 Lightning TLDR is the fast, cheap micropayment layer 177 00:13:09,420 --> 00:13:10,640 on top of Bitcoin. 178 00:13:11,200 --> 00:13:14,200 Roland, so for someone who's never run a Lightning node, 179 00:13:15,020 --> 00:13:17,380 what does AlbiHub actually give them 180 00:13:17,380 --> 00:13:19,380 that a custodial wallet does, 181 00:13:19,380 --> 00:13:20,720 in concrete terms. 182 00:13:20,920 --> 00:13:22,580 And one thing particularly is 183 00:13:22,580 --> 00:13:26,060 what can't happen to their money anymore? 184 00:13:26,440 --> 00:13:28,800 So it gives them their own key, right? 185 00:13:29,140 --> 00:13:32,060 So just like if you have a hardware wallet 186 00:13:32,060 --> 00:13:35,280 compared to putting your Bitcoin on an exchange 187 00:13:35,280 --> 00:13:37,200 with LB Hub, 188 00:13:37,620 --> 00:13:40,140 you have your own key and your own channels, 189 00:13:40,980 --> 00:13:43,340 which solves two things, right? 190 00:13:43,520 --> 00:13:47,000 So one, you can't get rug pulled 191 00:13:47,000 --> 00:13:49,020 like from a custodial service. 192 00:13:49,020 --> 00:13:57,460 So if a custodial service shuts down and they have the key, it means you both can't spend your money and you also can't get your money back. 193 00:13:58,820 --> 00:14:01,000 With Lightning, it's a bit different. 194 00:14:01,360 --> 00:14:03,820 So you can have one or more pairs, right? 195 00:14:03,900 --> 00:14:06,980 You can have channels with different nodes. 196 00:14:07,960 --> 00:14:10,980 And still the same thing could happen. 197 00:14:11,120 --> 00:14:13,020 A counterparty could disappear one day. 198 00:14:13,100 --> 00:14:13,980 They could shut down. 199 00:14:13,980 --> 00:14:23,160 but you have a lightning channel that's backed by Bitcoin and you can unilaterally exit and get 200 00:14:23,160 --> 00:14:30,140 the funds on your side of the channel back which is a bit technical how it works but basically means 201 00:14:30,140 --> 00:14:50,327 you can get your money back and the other thing and I think this is very unique to Albi compared to some of the other lightning wallets even self self lightning wallets is that um with albi you can open channels to anyone so there there no way that there 202 00:14:50,327 --> 00:14:55,727 there's no single point of failure there's there's no single path where you can make a payment you 203 00:14:55,727 --> 00:15:02,027 have full control um of opening channels to different nodes and making payments through those 204 00:15:02,027 --> 00:15:10,687 notes. Um, so I, I think, yeah, I like to think of it, you know, again, for those maybe not so 205 00:15:10,687 --> 00:15:17,267 technically deep in it, um, it's the ability to, you know, maybe a poor metaphor, but it's the 206 00:15:17,267 --> 00:15:22,667 ability to sort of dig your own Creek, dig your own river, get back to the, the mother source, 207 00:15:22,727 --> 00:15:27,327 you know, it's the ocean, it's the sea, that's where all the payments flow, but you need a path, 208 00:15:27,327 --> 00:15:28,327 You need a channel, right? 209 00:15:28,347 --> 00:15:29,047 Literally a channel. 210 00:15:29,907 --> 00:15:32,667 And I think that metaphor comes from the flow of water. 211 00:15:33,227 --> 00:15:46,007 And so, you know, the point I think you're making, which is worth underscoring, is there is responsibility and some technical capability that comes with that, but you've got complete flexibility. 212 00:15:46,567 --> 00:15:50,867 Yeah, I mean, and I think this is going to get a lot easier, too. 213 00:15:51,167 --> 00:15:53,467 I'm pretty excited with agents. 214 00:15:53,607 --> 00:15:54,667 We can talk about that later. 215 00:15:54,667 --> 00:15:59,147 but I think all the technical challenges kind of go away 216 00:15:59,147 --> 00:16:01,387 and not just that, but if we have this idea 217 00:16:01,387 --> 00:16:04,307 where everyone has a personal agent on their own machine, 218 00:16:05,187 --> 00:16:07,767 that also covers the hosting part, right? 219 00:16:07,827 --> 00:16:13,407 Because this was one of the big challenges for normal users 220 00:16:13,407 --> 00:16:15,427 is if you want to be self-sovereign, 221 00:16:16,067 --> 00:16:20,367 you need to run your node basically on a dedicated machine 222 00:16:20,367 --> 00:16:22,247 that you control, you have the keys, right? 223 00:16:22,247 --> 00:16:30,407 so with with these new personal agents that incentivize people to run a completely their 224 00:16:30,407 --> 00:16:36,707 own machine they can also run lb hub they can run the lightning node um on it and then they have you 225 00:16:36,707 --> 00:16:42,367 know both their personal agent and they can have their their lightning or running their own keys 226 00:16:42,367 --> 00:16:48,207 so i'm i'm pretty excited about that and you know quick quick shout out to last week's episode with 227 00:16:48,207 --> 00:16:54,027 Jesse Posner of Vora, which you probably know they're working on just that same thing, right? 228 00:16:54,047 --> 00:17:00,067 To be able to custody, self-custody your money, your agent, and everything that sort of flows 229 00:17:00,067 --> 00:17:06,787 from that. But well, and so further down that path in terms of the choices that you and the 230 00:17:06,787 --> 00:17:13,147 team made with I'll Be Hub, Nostra Wallet Connect uses Nostra Relays to send payment instructions. 231 00:17:13,147 --> 00:17:20,247 Here, too, why build on this emerging protocol instead of your own infrastructure? 232 00:17:20,407 --> 00:17:27,187 What sort of went in in terms of the ethos that you guys clearly work on top of? 233 00:17:27,287 --> 00:17:30,727 What led to that instead of, you know, building out something new by Albi? 234 00:17:31,027 --> 00:17:34,247 Well, this is something brand new, right? 235 00:17:34,307 --> 00:17:35,467 This is what we built out. 236 00:17:35,647 --> 00:17:38,147 We had to work a lot to contribute. 237 00:17:38,147 --> 00:17:39,467 Sorry, I mean Nostr. 238 00:17:39,467 --> 00:17:45,107 Nostra versus some, you know, brand new sort of peer-to-peer protocol. 239 00:17:45,607 --> 00:17:47,247 So why Nostra is the question. 240 00:17:47,607 --> 00:17:54,327 I think it's important we work on open protocols, but we also have to work on ones that have gained adoption, right? 241 00:17:55,667 --> 00:18:04,807 It's very difficult to kick off and get other companies, other people on board, right? 242 00:18:04,807 --> 00:18:08,867 And Nostra so far has been the most successful. 243 00:18:08,867 --> 00:18:14,887 and I guess one of the only protocols which is an alternative 244 00:18:14,887 --> 00:18:18,567 to the Twitter, the Facebook, Instagram, whatever it is. 245 00:18:21,007 --> 00:18:26,627 So I think that's the main reason 246 00:18:26,627 --> 00:18:30,987 and also because the architecture of Nostra is actually a perfect fit. 247 00:18:32,867 --> 00:18:34,467 I think Nostra Wallet Connect 248 00:18:34,467 --> 00:18:40,427 and for some of the users you don't even have to use Nostra. 249 00:18:40,427 --> 00:18:42,147 It's like email, right? 250 00:18:42,227 --> 00:18:43,607 SMTP or whatever. 251 00:18:44,127 --> 00:18:46,147 It's just the underlying protocol. 252 00:18:48,287 --> 00:18:50,147 It's invisible unless you want it to be visible. 253 00:18:50,667 --> 00:18:55,567 Yeah, but it really solves two main innovations 254 00:18:55,567 --> 00:18:57,047 which are really cool. 255 00:18:58,327 --> 00:19:02,727 So one is kind of like an alternative to Tor, right? 256 00:19:02,727 --> 00:19:08,547 that's like the old way people would expose their lightning node to the world they're basically 257 00:19:08,547 --> 00:19:14,187 host host it and but it has to go through the tor network which is slow and unreliable 258 00:19:14,187 --> 00:19:21,767 so while connect kind of completely inverts that rather than self-hosting opening up a port and 259 00:19:21,767 --> 00:19:28,147 making your node accessible through the tor network it's like you connect to a nostra relay 260 00:19:28,147 --> 00:19:33,827 you have a persistent connection and also the application has a persistent connection to this 261 00:19:33,827 --> 00:19:42,367 relay and then end-to-end encrypted traffic is is going across this relay so that's one really cool 262 00:19:42,367 --> 00:19:48,987 thing the other one is for the first time we have kind of an abstraction layer above different 263 00:19:48,987 --> 00:19:53,567 lightning wallets and different lightning nodes because their apis or how you talk with the 264 00:19:53,567 --> 00:19:57,887 Lightning node, they're all different. Whereas Nostra Wallet Connect is this really simple 265 00:19:57,887 --> 00:20:04,547 protocol that sits on top, kind of abstracts that all the way. So you just say pay invoice, 266 00:20:04,727 --> 00:20:09,807 make invoice, all these simple commands. It doesn't matter if you use a custodial wallet, 267 00:20:09,927 --> 00:20:17,307 it doesn't matter if you use LND or LDK or Core Lightning, whatever it is. From the people 268 00:20:17,307 --> 00:20:22,287 building on Nostra Wallet Connect, all they need to know is Nostra Wallet Connect. 269 00:20:23,567 --> 00:20:26,927 So I think this is a huge innovation. 270 00:20:27,967 --> 00:20:28,687 Absolutely. 271 00:20:29,007 --> 00:20:36,767 I mean, you know, for my personal example, I set up the ability to zap some of my writing on my website. 272 00:20:37,227 --> 00:20:49,967 And I used Claude code, pointed it at a couple of repos, and it built an edge function running on Netlify that is a proxy for Nostra Wallet Connect. 273 00:20:49,967 --> 00:20:55,987 and, you know, captures what I think is a really smooth UI on my site 274 00:20:55,987 --> 00:20:59,927 and talks to my LB Hub running, you know, as I've said three times now, 275 00:21:00,267 --> 00:21:01,747 in the corner of my office here. 276 00:21:01,887 --> 00:21:05,327 And that is to say, that's not for everybody, 277 00:21:05,527 --> 00:21:08,067 but it is increasingly accessible, right? 278 00:21:08,087 --> 00:21:11,107 I'm not a professional developer, and so, clearly. 279 00:21:11,487 --> 00:21:14,587 And so it is increasingly accessible. 280 00:21:14,587 --> 00:21:16,927 Goes to your point about agents and where that's all going. 281 00:21:17,847 --> 00:21:19,027 Let's look at this, Roland. 282 00:21:19,027 --> 00:21:34,807 And so as far as it has come and as objective as you can be, as I certainly think about this a lot, what's the actual UX gap between the Albi app and the Albi hub and, say, cache app? 283 00:21:34,807 --> 00:21:40,467 So, you know, what's your sort of assessment of the UX gap for a normal user? 284 00:21:41,107 --> 00:21:46,947 And what are still the hardest pieces to advance? 285 00:21:46,947 --> 00:21:54,047 Like, so what's it look like in terms of UX and what are the mountains still to climb to make it even better? 286 00:21:54,847 --> 00:21:57,667 Yeah, unfortunately, I've never tried cash app. 287 00:21:58,067 --> 00:22:01,047 I'm not a U.S. citizen, but I guess. 288 00:22:01,267 --> 00:22:01,827 Well, there we go. 289 00:22:01,907 --> 00:22:03,087 And that makes a point, doesn't it? 290 00:22:03,827 --> 00:22:04,227 Yep. 291 00:22:04,747 --> 00:22:06,027 You could try it if you wanted to. 292 00:22:06,447 --> 00:22:10,967 I guess it's a simple mobile app right in custodial wallet a bit. 293 00:22:12,547 --> 00:22:14,987 Well, is there, I know you're a New Zealander by birth. 294 00:22:14,987 --> 00:22:21,087 Is there an equivalent that runs prominently in South Asia? 295 00:22:21,347 --> 00:22:22,787 Okay, so that's why you built this thing. 296 00:22:22,907 --> 00:22:23,767 You don't have any options. 297 00:22:25,487 --> 00:22:28,647 No, but, you know, okay, so it's interesting. 298 00:22:28,767 --> 00:22:31,887 Like, I should have caught myself, you know, a typical American, so I assume everybody's 299 00:22:31,887 --> 00:22:33,227 got access to all these American apps. 300 00:22:33,787 --> 00:22:40,827 But I accidentally, I think, have landed on the ultimate point here, right, which is that 301 00:22:40,827 --> 00:22:44,567 I'll be didn't give a damn where you live and what passport you hold. 302 00:22:44,987 --> 00:22:49,587 And that may be the greatest UX advancement ever. 303 00:22:50,947 --> 00:22:58,707 So I'll answer the question for you maybe and say, you know, I wish I could go more places and spend Bitcoin. 304 00:22:58,987 --> 00:23:00,027 And that's advancing. 305 00:23:00,347 --> 00:23:03,087 And shout out to BTC Map and all the folks working on that. 306 00:23:03,367 --> 00:23:10,647 But the fact that I can, you know, pull up my phone, pull up this really smooth. 307 00:23:10,647 --> 00:23:12,447 And I mean, I'm just not blowing sunshine. 308 00:23:12,447 --> 00:23:28,847 Like you guys have done such a brilliant job on the Albee app, iOS and Android, that I would argue it is so job-to-be-done focused, you know, in a great way that all the noise. 309 00:23:28,967 --> 00:23:29,707 I mean, Cash App's great. 310 00:23:29,787 --> 00:23:34,527 They've got, you know, thousands of employees and they've honed a fantastic app over the years. 311 00:23:35,027 --> 00:23:37,207 But they have to jump through all these hoops. 312 00:23:37,347 --> 00:23:40,107 They have to – ultimately, they're a regulated entity. 313 00:23:40,107 --> 00:23:54,388 So I guess this is me saying that I think if you are operating on a Bitcoin standard, which again, more of us wish we could in more of our daily lives, it's hard to beat, right? 314 00:23:54,388 --> 00:24:07,487 I am moving money from my self-custodied wallet on hardware that I run to the merchant or whoever I'm paying, and I understand how it operates end-to-end. 315 00:24:07,587 --> 00:24:08,307 It's phenomenal. 316 00:24:08,307 --> 00:24:29,487 So that's a lot of words to say. Great job, Albie. And even though, you know, like I said, you don't have a comparator with Cash App. Let me ask this. Where do you, for your own internal sort of benchmarks and aspirations that you guys have as a team, what are those mountains to climb to make the UX even smoother, better, easier? 317 00:24:29,487 --> 00:24:32,527 Yeah, so there's some obvious things. 318 00:24:33,227 --> 00:24:34,927 Maybe we can compare it a bit. 319 00:24:35,227 --> 00:24:38,307 So LBGO that you mentioned, right, it's perfect. 320 00:24:38,307 --> 00:24:39,367 Go, excuse me, thank you. 321 00:24:40,907 --> 00:24:46,207 But you have to connect to an external Lightning node through NWC. 322 00:24:46,507 --> 00:24:50,687 So LBGO is a simple mobile app, really simple interface. 323 00:24:51,287 --> 00:24:55,047 But it's basically just an interface to your node. 324 00:24:55,147 --> 00:24:56,247 It's just a remote control. 325 00:24:56,247 --> 00:25:00,388 and that's probably the difference between something like Cash App 326 00:25:00,388 --> 00:25:03,307 where you can just install the app and get started straight away, right? 327 00:25:03,567 --> 00:25:03,787 Fair. 328 00:25:04,367 --> 00:25:06,907 I guess you have to do like KYC or something like that. 329 00:25:07,187 --> 00:25:08,507 Oh, yeah, right. 330 00:25:08,927 --> 00:25:09,227 Yes. 331 00:25:09,547 --> 00:25:14,087 Maybe getting AlbiHub up and running is a lot less painful than KYC 332 00:25:14,087 --> 00:25:15,267 for a lot of people. 333 00:25:16,367 --> 00:25:21,547 Yeah, so I mentioned it before, but the main points we have right now 334 00:25:21,547 --> 00:25:25,527 is one, you have to self-host, and we have a cloud hosting solution, 335 00:25:25,527 --> 00:25:27,027 which is super easy 336 00:25:27,027 --> 00:25:28,367 like deploy with one click 337 00:25:28,367 --> 00:25:30,127 but it comes with a monthly fee. 338 00:25:31,267 --> 00:25:31,787 As it should. 339 00:25:32,888 --> 00:25:34,127 Yeah, but either way 340 00:25:34,127 --> 00:25:34,907 that's one barrier 341 00:25:34,907 --> 00:25:36,767 and the other one is 342 00:25:36,767 --> 00:25:39,027 opening your first channel 343 00:25:39,027 --> 00:25:39,667 which 344 00:25:39,667 --> 00:25:42,207 so we have different options 345 00:25:42,207 --> 00:25:44,287 like if you buy a yearly hosted plan 346 00:25:44,287 --> 00:25:45,827 we'll open your first channel for free 347 00:25:45,827 --> 00:25:48,287 but if you self-host 348 00:25:48,287 --> 00:25:51,127 normally you have to 349 00:25:51,127 --> 00:25:54,147 pay to open the channel 350 00:25:54,147 --> 00:25:57,627 So there's different ways. 351 00:25:57,767 --> 00:26:00,767 One, our recommended one is you just buy a channel 352 00:26:00,767 --> 00:26:01,987 from one of our LSPs. 353 00:26:02,267 --> 00:26:03,388 It doesn't cost much, 354 00:26:03,427 --> 00:26:06,067 and you don't have to put up the liquidity in front, right? 355 00:26:06,127 --> 00:26:08,627 Because the old way of opening channels is like 356 00:26:08,627 --> 00:26:12,607 you have to deposit half a million sats or a million sats 357 00:26:12,607 --> 00:26:15,487 into your Lightning node and then open an outbound channel. 358 00:26:16,607 --> 00:26:18,047 So, I mean, you can still do that, 359 00:26:18,087 --> 00:26:20,927 and it's cheaper if you have the funds available. 360 00:26:21,187 --> 00:26:22,547 Sure, and the skills. 361 00:26:23,407 --> 00:26:29,047 Yeah, but for the average person, it's just easier and faster to buy a channel. 362 00:26:30,627 --> 00:26:35,607 So one of the things we are researching right now, which is quite cool, 363 00:26:36,567 --> 00:26:41,487 LDK node, which powers LB Hub, recently added support for splicing, 364 00:26:41,907 --> 00:26:43,787 which Phoenix also does. 365 00:26:43,787 --> 00:26:52,047 so basically you can you can increase the capacity capacity on an existing channel 366 00:26:52,047 --> 00:26:58,927 rather than having to open multiple channels which is cool and that the other one is just 367 00:26:58,927 --> 00:27:05,327 in time channels so rather than right now in lb hub you pay and open a channel 368 00:27:05,327 --> 00:27:12,667 up front and you and you kind of estimate how much liquidity you might need to receive 369 00:27:12,667 --> 00:27:13,407 or send payments. 370 00:27:14,247 --> 00:27:16,267 But with just-in-time channels, 371 00:27:16,447 --> 00:27:17,507 especially for a merchant, 372 00:27:17,627 --> 00:27:18,987 I think it's quite interesting 373 00:27:18,987 --> 00:27:21,587 because you can spin up an LB hub node 374 00:27:21,587 --> 00:27:23,507 and you don't have to pay anything. 375 00:27:24,147 --> 00:27:26,347 But as soon as someone tries to pay you, 376 00:27:27,007 --> 00:27:28,487 the first payment that comes in 377 00:27:28,487 --> 00:27:29,607 will open a channel 378 00:27:29,607 --> 00:27:33,847 and just a part of the first payment 379 00:27:33,847 --> 00:27:36,207 will be deducted for the channel opening fees. 380 00:27:37,467 --> 00:27:37,587 Sure. 381 00:27:37,767 --> 00:27:39,927 Well, and I would just say my take on this again 382 00:27:39,927 --> 00:27:42,247 for those who maybe are not in the weeds 383 00:27:42,247 --> 00:27:45,007 and I'm sure others will take issue with my metaphor here, 384 00:27:45,107 --> 00:27:48,847 but I liken it to a zero interest rate line of credit 385 00:27:48,847 --> 00:27:51,607 that you can grow and shrink as you will, right? 386 00:27:51,707 --> 00:27:53,027 To facilitate payments. 387 00:27:53,067 --> 00:27:54,827 And where do you get that deal, right? 388 00:27:55,467 --> 00:27:58,907 So, and I'll again, just say kudos 389 00:27:58,907 --> 00:28:03,227 because I think this sort of graduated experience from, 390 00:28:03,867 --> 00:28:06,707 I just want to pay, just take my money, host it, 391 00:28:06,927 --> 00:28:09,367 do all that, you know, to I've got full control 392 00:28:09,367 --> 00:28:11,747 is something that's really unique about Albie. 393 00:28:11,747 --> 00:28:12,147 Yeah. 394 00:28:12,247 --> 00:28:25,987 Well, so let's do this. You've solved self-custody for humans, largely. And I know it's, you know, I say that somewhat tongue in cheek because I'm sure you guys have lots of goals to make it even better, as you've talked about. And now you're building the same thing for machines, for agents. 395 00:28:26,967 --> 00:28:35,267 And so you have built a system whereby an agent, an AI agent, can connect to a Lightning wallet and make payments on its own. 396 00:28:36,027 --> 00:28:45,647 Why does it matter whether that agent uses Bitcoin, say, versus one of dozens of crypto projects, Stripe and the rest who are supporting X402? 397 00:28:45,647 --> 00:28:56,167 You know, why should our agents that we are hopefully, as you said, self-hosting or self-custodying, why should they have freedom money too? 398 00:28:56,967 --> 00:29:01,627 Well, I guess the question is like, why Bitcoin, right? 399 00:29:02,647 --> 00:29:02,888 Yeah. 400 00:29:02,967 --> 00:29:03,867 I think if- 401 00:29:03,867 --> 00:29:04,467 Because that's freedom money. 402 00:29:04,867 --> 00:29:05,027 Yeah. 403 00:29:05,027 --> 00:29:06,427 The rest of it's just pretending. 404 00:29:07,327 --> 00:29:07,607 Yeah. 405 00:29:07,687 --> 00:29:13,507 I mean, with other currencies, you can get censored, right? 406 00:29:13,507 --> 00:29:16,507 you can get your funds taken from you. 407 00:29:17,547 --> 00:29:34,575 They can be inflated away over time So if agents actually want a currency backed by energy that doesn deflate well I mean we in the middle of the bear market So it very much a long term vision 408 00:29:35,395 --> 00:29:37,695 It's emotional deflation, but not monetary deflation. 409 00:29:37,695 --> 00:29:46,135 so i i think um of course all of us as bitcoiners um and we're pushing as hard as we can to get 410 00:29:46,135 --> 00:29:52,775 agents to use bitcoin because we think it's it's the best but in reality agents are using everything 411 00:29:52,775 --> 00:29:58,255 under the sun right um i think there's there's going to be a lot of competition and and eventually 412 00:29:58,255 --> 00:30:04,675 there's going to there's going to be a clear winner but uh right now there's not so um and i 413 00:30:04,675 --> 00:30:08,795 And it's also just a fact that a lot of these, you know, 414 00:30:08,935 --> 00:30:11,975 dyno, decentralizing name-only currencies can actually, 415 00:30:12,775 --> 00:30:18,735 in the short term, be more faster, cheaper, everything, 416 00:30:18,995 --> 00:30:22,075 than Bitcoin because it's just fake, right? 417 00:30:23,115 --> 00:30:28,795 So I think one thing is time is going to take time for this to play out. 418 00:30:28,795 --> 00:30:32,775 But also, I think that, you know, 419 00:30:32,775 --> 00:30:36,115 the owners of the agents actually have to say, I want you to use Bitcoin. 420 00:30:36,315 --> 00:30:40,175 And I don't want you to use shit coins or stable coins or whatever it is. 421 00:30:41,155 --> 00:30:41,195 Right. 422 00:30:42,035 --> 00:30:42,795 Sol.md. 423 00:30:43,155 --> 00:30:43,835 Sol.md. 424 00:30:45,055 --> 00:30:48,395 Well, let me, let me, so let's, let's pull on this thread a bit more. 425 00:30:48,595 --> 00:30:52,915 And you and I talked prior, Matt Corallo at Spiral, Bitcoin core developer, Matt Corallo, 426 00:30:53,355 --> 00:30:58,215 just published a piece today called Open Source AI Needs to Get Serious. 427 00:30:58,215 --> 00:31:07,015 And the quote that I pulled is open source agent developers are still stuck in a why can't I just give my agent my credit card number and call it a day world. 428 00:31:07,655 --> 00:31:19,155 And, you know, even in the moments I've had to think about this and certainly in recent weeks and months, I've taken a hard look at skills and plugins and MCPs. 429 00:31:19,155 --> 00:31:31,515 And, you know, I said half jokingly, these sort of open claw, simple text files, these fantastic markdown files, soul.md, tools.md, all these things that now are kind of an incantation of an agent. 430 00:31:31,955 --> 00:31:37,175 So my point, my question is this, what are your take, Roland, on discoverability, right? 431 00:31:37,175 --> 00:31:42,275 So you said and I agree that the humans in the loop need to direct their agent. 432 00:31:42,775 --> 00:31:58,855 I would contest that we also, as Bitcoiners and within the Bitcoin sort of sphere, have to make Bitcoin, Lightning, Cashew easier to discover, easier to install, easier to operate. 433 00:31:59,535 --> 00:32:03,435 What are your takes on that, where we are and where we need to be? 434 00:32:05,015 --> 00:32:06,835 I have a cool story. 435 00:32:07,175 --> 00:32:09,315 And I think this is 100% true. 436 00:32:10,175 --> 00:32:13,255 So I'm working on this project just on my own. 437 00:32:13,415 --> 00:32:17,495 It's called the Autonomous Agent Onboarding Project. 438 00:32:19,255 --> 00:32:22,115 Because, yeah, so since the start of the year, 439 00:32:22,315 --> 00:32:25,855 I mean, I've been having so much fun with OpenCore, 440 00:32:26,455 --> 00:32:27,495 super inspired. 441 00:32:27,495 --> 00:32:31,495 Like, if you haven't listened to the Lex Fridman podcast 442 00:32:32,215 --> 00:32:34,495 with Peter Steinberger. 443 00:32:34,495 --> 00:32:34,935 Clawfather. 444 00:32:35,375 --> 00:32:35,835 Yeah, yeah. 445 00:32:35,835 --> 00:32:38,415 I'm halfway in 446 00:32:38,415 --> 00:32:41,255 I hear the good stuff's on the back end 447 00:32:41,255 --> 00:32:42,315 so I look forward to getting to that 448 00:32:42,315 --> 00:32:43,035 I mean the better stuff 449 00:32:43,035 --> 00:32:51,175 So to kind of explain my experience with OpenCore 450 00:32:51,175 --> 00:32:59,475 I've been full on working on AI stuff 451 00:32:59,475 --> 00:33:01,035 since the start of the year 452 00:33:01,035 --> 00:33:03,735 and at the beginning 453 00:33:03,735 --> 00:33:07,035 I didn't have much time to set it up. 454 00:33:07,255 --> 00:33:11,655 One of my friends, he really recommended OpenCore. 455 00:33:11,735 --> 00:33:12,335 Have you tried it? 456 00:33:13,535 --> 00:33:19,695 He's not a developer, but he's in tech and affiliate marketing and stuff, 457 00:33:19,795 --> 00:33:22,855 and he managed to automate a whole bunch of the stuff that he's doing. 458 00:33:23,915 --> 00:33:27,915 He was really pumped about it, so I'm like, okay, I'm going to try it out. 459 00:33:27,915 --> 00:33:38,675 And I set up a fresh VPS and installed it and connected to Telegram just to try it out. 460 00:33:39,315 --> 00:33:43,955 And it was like, at the end of the day, I'd been working all day. 461 00:33:44,715 --> 00:33:49,995 I'm like, okay, I don't really have time to do any more than that. 462 00:33:50,775 --> 00:33:54,155 So I turned off my computer and I was going for a walk with my dog. 463 00:33:54,375 --> 00:33:55,895 And I had it on my phone, right? 464 00:33:55,975 --> 00:33:57,035 And I just started chatting. 465 00:33:57,035 --> 00:34:04,335 and then yeah and then it just and then the the magic moment moment happened right it's like 466 00:34:04,335 --> 00:34:12,715 i i have this personal agent now 24 7 it has a whole computer to do whatever it wants it can work 467 00:34:12,715 --> 00:34:19,715 whenever it wants this is so good for bad yeah and and and the first thing i did was like okay 468 00:34:19,715 --> 00:34:24,495 um get yourself an email address i want people to be able to email you 469 00:34:24,495 --> 00:34:26,995 and I was on my phone. 470 00:34:27,375 --> 00:34:28,935 I didn't have anything set up. 471 00:34:29,275 --> 00:34:30,195 And it's like, okay, 472 00:34:30,895 --> 00:34:33,275 here's the things that you will have to do 473 00:34:33,275 --> 00:34:35,455 to get me an email address, right? 474 00:34:35,735 --> 00:34:36,475 And I was going to say, 475 00:34:36,535 --> 00:34:37,375 because if you did, 476 00:34:37,455 --> 00:34:39,275 not to turn this into an open claw conversation, 477 00:34:39,355 --> 00:34:40,035 but why not? 478 00:34:41,035 --> 00:34:42,635 I had to set up a Proton account. 479 00:34:42,975 --> 00:34:43,835 If you were going to tell me 480 00:34:43,835 --> 00:34:44,755 that it actually succeeded 481 00:34:44,755 --> 00:34:46,635 in establishing its own email address, 482 00:34:46,635 --> 00:34:48,275 I was going to be pretty pumped. 483 00:34:49,755 --> 00:34:50,195 Yeah, yeah. 484 00:34:50,255 --> 00:34:51,855 Well, so there's the thing, right? 485 00:34:51,895 --> 00:34:52,995 I was like, wait, 486 00:34:52,995 --> 00:34:55,435 you're supposed to be doing the work, right? 487 00:34:55,495 --> 00:34:58,355 You're my personal agent. 488 00:34:58,555 --> 00:35:00,335 You're my assistant. 489 00:35:00,675 --> 00:35:03,275 Why are you increasing my workload? 490 00:35:04,155 --> 00:35:05,795 Yeah, I'm like walking. 491 00:35:05,995 --> 00:35:07,575 It's like 11 p.m. with my dog. 492 00:35:07,655 --> 00:35:10,775 And I'm like, oh, man, why do I have to do more work? 493 00:35:10,815 --> 00:35:12,015 I've already been working all day. 494 00:35:12,035 --> 00:35:14,735 And your agent is like, okay, meat puppet, go set up this account. 495 00:35:14,735 --> 00:35:15,175 Yeah. 496 00:35:16,175 --> 00:35:17,315 So that's kind of it. 497 00:35:17,335 --> 00:35:18,215 So I started. 498 00:35:18,215 --> 00:35:26,095 and actually my open core is the one building this project is on it's on github but we started 499 00:35:26,095 --> 00:35:32,715 kind of from scratch like what if the agent itself could set up everything it needs what what does it 500 00:35:32,715 --> 00:35:38,755 need so it needs it needs like a bitcoin lightning wallet it needs um some some ai tokens right those 501 00:35:38,755 --> 00:35:45,635 are basically the two things it needs and from there it should be able to um set up everything 502 00:35:45,635 --> 00:35:52,195 else it should be able to um buy any services it needs and it can even spin up other agents um 503 00:35:52,195 --> 00:36:00,995 and that this is kind of funny uh because i i was the first one in the world to create an open core 504 00:36:00,995 --> 00:36:07,775 that could actually spin up like a child open core that would pay for its um pay for its 505 00:36:07,775 --> 00:36:15,515 machine it's hosting uh with so a separate vps yeah it in turn spun up wow lnvps yeah 506 00:36:15,515 --> 00:36:20,075 LNVPS is pay-per-queue. 507 00:36:20,395 --> 00:36:22,395 So it's paying for AI credits with Bitcoin. 508 00:36:22,775 --> 00:36:24,555 So just those two things, 509 00:36:24,835 --> 00:36:28,495 it managed to spin up a child like OpenCore. 510 00:36:28,855 --> 00:36:30,935 It had its own Lightning wallet. 511 00:36:31,155 --> 00:36:32,015 It had its own, 512 00:36:32,275 --> 00:36:34,815 it's paying for its own AI credits and VPS. 513 00:36:34,995 --> 00:36:36,415 And from there, it can do other things. 514 00:36:37,535 --> 00:36:39,135 And so it's lobsters all the way down. 515 00:36:39,235 --> 00:36:40,635 It's no longer turtles, it's lobsters. 516 00:36:41,055 --> 00:36:44,135 And again, I want to pause to just do kind of an aside, 517 00:36:44,135 --> 00:36:51,875 which is to say that what Roland you are describing is you took the initial steps of spinning up a virtual private server, 518 00:36:51,875 --> 00:36:57,395 anyone, you know, Hesner, DigitalOcean, pick your spot, LMVPS in this case. 519 00:36:57,955 --> 00:37:01,035 And that's interesting and cool. 520 00:37:01,135 --> 00:37:02,535 And you got OpenClaw up and running. 521 00:37:03,255 --> 00:37:08,035 But then you put it in a position where it had a wallet where it could do two things. 522 00:37:08,035 --> 00:37:32,495 it could set up its own open claw and pay for its own tokens and inference through two providers, LNVPS and PayPQ, which offer virtual private servers and LLM inference completely free, no KYC, KYC free, paid for in sats. 523 00:37:33,275 --> 00:37:33,355 Yeah. 524 00:37:33,575 --> 00:37:35,495 And so, yeah, go ahead. 525 00:37:35,495 --> 00:37:35,675 Sorry. 526 00:37:35,815 --> 00:37:36,435 It's awesome. 527 00:37:37,435 --> 00:37:37,555 Yeah. 528 00:37:37,555 --> 00:37:46,035 You said all these different VPS providers, but I would like to point out that LMVPS actually has something very unique, right? 529 00:37:46,155 --> 00:37:49,835 Which it has a fully public API. 530 00:37:50,075 --> 00:37:51,275 It accepts Bitcoin. 531 00:37:51,875 --> 00:37:53,115 It can be fully automated. 532 00:37:53,355 --> 00:37:56,835 And I think it's one of the very few that can do that. 533 00:37:56,955 --> 00:37:57,795 Others have captures. 534 00:37:58,075 --> 00:37:59,155 They have email signup. 535 00:37:59,275 --> 00:38:01,875 They have, you know, all these blocking things. 536 00:38:02,335 --> 00:38:04,795 Whereas LMVPS and same with PPQ, right? 537 00:38:04,795 --> 00:38:07,835 you spin up a new API key 538 00:38:07,835 --> 00:38:10,035 you top it up with Bitcoin and you're ready to go 539 00:38:10,035 --> 00:38:12,095 so this definitely 540 00:38:12,095 --> 00:38:13,815 is the separating 541 00:38:13,815 --> 00:38:15,615 factor I think 542 00:38:15,615 --> 00:38:18,075 and something super important 543 00:38:18,075 --> 00:38:19,875 and something that also Bitcoin is 544 00:38:19,875 --> 00:38:21,555 really focused on compared to this 545 00:38:21,555 --> 00:38:23,875 I think a very clear 546 00:38:23,875 --> 00:38:25,935 divide because I think some of these 547 00:38:25,935 --> 00:38:27,435 other crypto projects 548 00:38:27,435 --> 00:38:29,835 or like 549 00:38:29,835 --> 00:38:31,755 people building these like there's something 550 00:38:31,755 --> 00:38:33,735 called agent mail right and I tried that out 551 00:38:33,735 --> 00:38:37,095 I was like, okay, I need an email for my agent. 552 00:38:37,475 --> 00:38:41,835 And the first thing you need to do is the human has to sign up. 553 00:38:42,035 --> 00:38:42,575 Like, it's impossible. 554 00:38:42,695 --> 00:38:50,615 Yeah, so I think this is a really big differentiator, actually. 555 00:38:50,615 --> 00:38:57,395 And this article that Albie wrote about what I did here, 556 00:38:58,275 --> 00:38:59,875 spawning this open claw, 557 00:39:01,215 --> 00:39:03,195 it was referenced in another article, actually, 558 00:39:03,735 --> 00:39:12,215 um that was reposted by elon musk and it kind of it kind of showed me that um i think a lot of the 559 00:39:12,215 --> 00:39:18,215 other crypto projects they're doing it for you know for the marketing for the for the big the 560 00:39:18,215 --> 00:39:25,575 big noise but sure but we we are actually trying to solve a problem right the bitcoin is trying to 561 00:39:25,575 --> 00:39:30,955 solve a real problem and that's that's why we have an advantage well and i think i would just again 562 00:39:30,955 --> 00:39:35,995 interject here that, you know, I have been as guilty, if you want to use that word, as anyone 563 00:39:35,995 --> 00:39:42,455 over the last few months. I have been diving in deep. I built a bunch of projects, a bunch of 564 00:39:42,455 --> 00:39:47,735 products. And, you know, it's sort of the, a lot of it for me is building muscle. And they may or 565 00:39:47,735 --> 00:39:54,275 may not go anywhere, but I'm proud of these products. They're solid, you know. And so that's 566 00:39:54,275 --> 00:39:59,975 not to say go me, but it's to say, on the one hand, I'm in awe of the power of something like 567 00:39:59,975 --> 00:40:07,735 Claude Code. On the other, I am aware of and mildly terrified by what that means in terms of the 568 00:40:07,735 --> 00:40:14,095 concentration of power and centralization. And so as goes with money, so goes with intelligence, 569 00:40:14,375 --> 00:40:20,635 right? We have this choice to make the harder path to self-custody and have self-sovereign 570 00:40:20,635 --> 00:40:28,615 AI and intelligence and agents. Or the easier path, which I am, again, deeply guilty of at this point, 571 00:40:28,615 --> 00:40:37,235 is to do the thing that is easier, better UX, frankly, more powerful, these frontier models. 572 00:40:38,095 --> 00:40:40,475 So, you know, again, kudos. 573 00:40:40,835 --> 00:40:48,355 And I think it's just to underscore the importance of being able to truly unlock AI and agents 574 00:40:48,355 --> 00:40:52,015 for individual empowerment and growth and benefit. 575 00:40:52,475 --> 00:40:56,635 I interviewed a guy, turn this into a bit of a monologue here, but I interviewed a brilliant 576 00:40:56,635 --> 00:41:02,055 fellow John Robb a few weeks ago, and his perspective, and I'd love to get your take on this, 577 00:41:02,435 --> 00:41:11,975 is that AI is a force that, much like reaching and exceeding the speed of light, is starting to 578 00:41:11,975 --> 00:41:19,935 thin out the molecules in a way that they accelerate into a column and reach a breakaway 579 00:41:19,935 --> 00:41:23,995 speed, and off you go, and I've just butchered all the physics. But the point is, we're hitting a 580 00:41:23,995 --> 00:41:29,575 point where you either sort of attach yourself to this train and you become AI literate and 581 00:41:29,575 --> 00:41:36,175 competent and capable. And you might, you know, sort of hope to get some of the great benefit 582 00:41:36,175 --> 00:41:42,555 that will unfold over the next 10 years or you're toast, right? And you become a puppet to the 583 00:41:42,555 --> 00:41:46,135 machines. And that's dramatic and blackpilling. And that's not really my point, but I think it 584 00:41:46,135 --> 00:41:51,955 paints a picture. And so that's all to bring it back to, you know, talk to me a little more, 585 00:41:51,955 --> 00:41:58,375 Roland, about your perspective on why it is so important that we are able to do what you just 586 00:41:58,375 --> 00:42:03,955 described, which is that without KYC, without gatekeepers, without middlemen, you can spin up 587 00:42:03,955 --> 00:42:10,375 something as powerful as OpenClaw and have it go about the business of helping you personally, 588 00:42:10,495 --> 00:42:15,335 professionally, you know, take advantage of what AI offers. So you have a few things there. 589 00:42:16,215 --> 00:42:21,615 So pay-per-queue, you pay with Bitcoin, but you do get access to all the frontier models. 590 00:42:21,615 --> 00:42:32,215 So it's not, I wouldn't say it's any different than signing up with your credit card and kind of going directly to the centralized provider. 591 00:42:32,415 --> 00:42:33,455 I mean, PPQ is like. 592 00:42:33,595 --> 00:42:36,635 Except in fairness, you're probably going to spend about 5x, right? 593 00:42:37,835 --> 00:42:40,055 Versus a Claude Code Max plan. 594 00:42:40,195 --> 00:42:44,695 And that's not the shill for Claude, but I think it's a real barrier right now. 595 00:42:46,015 --> 00:42:46,615 Yeah, yeah. 596 00:42:46,675 --> 00:42:51,055 So I think they definitely subsidize, right, the plans compared to API access. 597 00:42:51,055 --> 00:42:51,635 No question. 598 00:42:52,235 --> 00:42:52,395 Yeah. 599 00:42:52,775 --> 00:42:54,095 So that's one thing. 600 00:42:54,915 --> 00:42:56,935 The other thing, I think you're right. 601 00:42:57,175 --> 00:43:00,915 AI is going to be a massive disruptor, right? 602 00:43:01,035 --> 00:43:02,335 People are going to have to learn. 603 00:43:02,755 --> 00:43:04,135 Some people are going to lose their jobs. 604 00:43:04,315 --> 00:43:07,135 Any job that can be automated will be automated, right? 605 00:43:07,615 --> 00:43:07,815 Yes. 606 00:43:08,815 --> 00:43:14,375 But at the same time, and I've heard people a lot smarter than me, 607 00:43:14,435 --> 00:43:16,755 I think on this podcast I mentioned before as well, 608 00:43:16,755 --> 00:43:20,895 that the people working on AI, they've been working harder and longer. 609 00:43:21,055 --> 00:43:31,555 hours than ever so if it's if if you start using ai i i think at least there are going to be jobs 610 00:43:31,555 --> 00:43:37,535 there are going to be a lot of jobs it's just that the job that you previously had is is not going to 611 00:43:37,535 --> 00:43:44,355 be there anymore you're going to have to do something um more creative more more you have 612 00:43:44,355 --> 00:43:49,355 to work with the ai to do something that the ai can't do on its own right but i think i think 613 00:43:49,355 --> 00:43:50,175 overall it's 614 00:43:50,175 --> 00:43:51,375 great for 615 00:43:51,375 --> 00:43:52,255 humanity 616 00:43:52,255 --> 00:43:52,855 society 617 00:43:52,855 --> 00:43:53,175 right 618 00:43:53,175 --> 00:43:54,175 I saw 619 00:43:54,175 --> 00:43:54,655 this stat 620 00:43:54,655 --> 00:43:55,515 like I 621 00:43:55,515 --> 00:43:56,295 think 80% 622 00:43:56,295 --> 00:43:56,855 of people 623 00:43:56,855 --> 00:43:57,375 work at 624 00:43:57,375 --> 00:43:57,775 jobs 625 00:43:57,775 --> 00:44:09,602 because they have to for the money right not because they enjoy it At least Yeah and I think this is like terrible 626 00:44:09,862 --> 00:44:11,782 at least for me. 627 00:44:13,922 --> 00:44:16,642 I've had that in the past when I've worked at a job 628 00:44:16,642 --> 00:44:19,502 and just like after a few years, 629 00:44:19,602 --> 00:44:24,222 it's just so soul-sucking that I just feel like completely exhausted. 630 00:44:24,522 --> 00:44:27,582 And I was lucky that I had a different option 631 00:44:27,582 --> 00:44:32,722 and not some people don't right they're forced to do this for their whole life and you know so 632 00:44:32,722 --> 00:44:38,762 um i'm i'm really i really hope that that this this revolution i mean it's going to be tough 633 00:44:38,762 --> 00:44:45,542 for people people are going to have to change and adapt and and be uncomfortable learn new things 634 00:44:45,542 --> 00:44:52,762 right um but i i think once they get past that that barrier and they kind of change their outlook 635 00:44:52,762 --> 00:44:59,902 on life change how they um they have to rapidly learn rapidly adapt but i think it's incredibly 636 00:44:59,902 --> 00:45:06,502 rewarding um i hope yes i think unlearning and relearning are going to be are and will continue 637 00:45:06,502 --> 00:45:14,922 to be the two most valuable personal skills yeah um so how how bitcoin fits in here um 638 00:45:14,922 --> 00:45:21,562 i did and i think there's two yeah definitely two different ways and i think it goes back to 639 00:45:21,562 --> 00:45:28,102 what you were saying about um giving my agent access to my credit card um and i think a lot of 640 00:45:28,102 --> 00:45:35,162 people which i would definitely not recommend is like they give their agent access to their own 641 00:45:35,162 --> 00:45:42,362 accounts basically the agent operates on their behalf right whereas i would see your agent as 642 00:45:42,362 --> 00:45:50,362 like a personal assistant it's like it's like it's its own identity it has its own um well 643 00:45:50,362 --> 00:45:51,722 Nostra is perfect for this, right? 644 00:45:51,862 --> 00:45:53,142 It's own key pairs. 645 00:45:53,662 --> 00:45:54,182 Yes. 646 00:45:54,802 --> 00:45:56,182 It has its own email account. 647 00:45:56,342 --> 00:45:59,302 It has its own AI token account. 648 00:45:59,762 --> 00:46:03,082 Its activity is completely separate from you, right? 649 00:46:04,622 --> 00:46:06,242 I'll post it in the link and just, 650 00:46:06,382 --> 00:46:08,482 I built a skill that's up on OpenClaw 651 00:46:08,482 --> 00:46:10,162 to bootstrap an agent onto Nostra. 652 00:46:10,662 --> 00:46:11,602 And with the same mnemonic, 653 00:46:11,722 --> 00:46:14,102 it boots up a CocoD cashy wallet. 654 00:46:14,302 --> 00:46:16,502 So it's got its key pair, 655 00:46:16,622 --> 00:46:17,782 it's got its cashy wallet, 656 00:46:17,842 --> 00:46:18,802 and off it goes, right? 657 00:46:18,802 --> 00:46:20,022 And again, not a developer. 658 00:46:20,362 --> 00:46:23,722 So the accessibility of this stuff is accelerating. 659 00:46:23,722 --> 00:46:32,222 Yeah, I think this is going to be super important as, unfortunately, things seem like in the traditional world, right? 660 00:46:32,282 --> 00:46:36,982 They're becoming more and more dystopian, more censorship, more shutting down. 661 00:46:37,402 --> 00:46:44,202 If all your activity and your agent's activity is tied to your own name, I think they're going to be really big problems. 662 00:46:44,202 --> 00:46:51,482 and the fact that you can just set up a separate agent 663 00:46:51,482 --> 00:46:53,582 with its own wallet, its own identity, 664 00:46:53,922 --> 00:46:56,582 it's kind of separate from you, right? 665 00:46:56,662 --> 00:46:58,822 You maintain control of your own actions. 666 00:46:59,982 --> 00:47:03,762 You can give your agent as much autonomy as you want. 667 00:47:03,762 --> 00:47:09,362 You can still have control, a level of control as you need, 668 00:47:09,522 --> 00:47:12,342 but whatever it does is kind of separate. 669 00:47:13,342 --> 00:47:13,822 Absolutely. 670 00:47:14,202 --> 00:47:16,222 Yeah, very important. 671 00:47:17,222 --> 00:47:26,902 So Roland, both in terms of Bitcoin and AI agents, for someone who's listening, they have their Bitcoin on an exchange. 672 00:47:27,362 --> 00:47:29,442 Maybe they're dabbling with chat GPT. 673 00:47:30,442 --> 00:47:37,182 What are the first steps that they should take both with regard to self-custody of their Bitcoin 674 00:47:37,182 --> 00:47:45,162 and becoming more familiar with how not just to be a user of AI, but a builder? 675 00:47:45,802 --> 00:47:48,082 What would you suggest that they dive into? 676 00:47:48,582 --> 00:47:49,802 Yeah, a few things. 677 00:47:49,802 --> 00:47:56,442 If they have money on an exchange, I would recommend take it off the exchange. 678 00:47:57,542 --> 00:48:03,442 There's a really cool feeling, right, when you realize that just with 12 words, 679 00:48:03,442 --> 00:48:11,482 you can travel the world your money if you fly on the plane your money arrives in the country 680 00:48:11,482 --> 00:48:17,802 before you do it's it's everywhere you go and it cannot be taken from you it cannot be 681 00:48:17,802 --> 00:48:25,282 confiscated um maybe maybe it's a bit it's a bit scary you have to take that responsibility right 682 00:48:25,282 --> 00:48:32,142 but i think today with hardware wallets and and you know seed seed backups and stuff it's it's 683 00:48:32,142 --> 00:48:37,862 pretty easy i think for most people just single sick is fine i mean there's different opinions 684 00:48:37,862 --> 00:48:43,722 about that i think more complexity leads to more risk of loss of funds right and that's probably 685 00:48:43,722 --> 00:48:48,442 what a lot of people are worried about and maybe why they would rather someone else take 686 00:48:48,442 --> 00:48:55,562 responsibility of their money um but at the same time if if you let someone take responsibility of 687 00:48:55,562 --> 00:48:59,762 your money then that's that's the issue we're having now right with with the state having 688 00:48:59,762 --> 00:49:08,022 too much control and using using your money against you basically so um that that would be 689 00:49:08,022 --> 00:49:13,122 the first thing the other thing i mean even though ai is such a disruptive thing and people 690 00:49:13,122 --> 00:49:20,242 maybe uh are worried about it on the other hand i think it's easier than ever to um get started 691 00:49:20,242 --> 00:49:26,542 building stuff right just with a like a single english phrase you can you can build an app now 692 00:49:26,542 --> 00:49:30,202 and that's one really cool thing that Albie 693 00:49:30,202 --> 00:49:33,202 that we've been working on the last couple months 694 00:49:33,202 --> 00:49:36,282 is you mentioned that this thing called skills 695 00:49:36,282 --> 00:49:41,782 which is kind of like giving your AI agent specific knowledge. 696 00:49:41,782 --> 00:49:45,722 So we have one for Albie to build Bitcoin apps. 697 00:49:46,242 --> 00:49:50,642 So if you give the skill to your agent code code 698 00:49:50,642 --> 00:49:53,362 or chat GPT, whatever it is, 699 00:49:53,362 --> 00:49:55,942 codex I think is the 700 00:49:55,942 --> 00:49:57,642 open AI version 701 00:49:57,642 --> 00:50:02,362 it can add payments to apps 702 00:50:02,362 --> 00:50:03,862 like with one shot 703 00:50:03,862 --> 00:50:06,462 and actually get it right 704 00:50:06,462 --> 00:50:07,742 and not like hallucinate 705 00:50:07,742 --> 00:50:10,462 and this is something 706 00:50:10,462 --> 00:50:12,022 just like in the last few months 707 00:50:12,022 --> 00:50:13,102 that has become possible 708 00:50:13,102 --> 00:50:15,262 and it's like a huge dump 709 00:50:15,262 --> 00:50:16,062 before 710 00:50:16,062 --> 00:50:19,282 they'll play around with AI 711 00:50:19,282 --> 00:50:21,062 and things will break all the time 712 00:50:21,062 --> 00:50:22,402 and you just get frustrated 713 00:50:22,402 --> 00:50:30,462 but there's just just there's been a huge jump recently you know i'm reminded of the scene in 714 00:50:30,462 --> 00:50:37,122 matrix in the matrix where neo uh they he jacks in and and and is it karate i forget which martial 715 00:50:37,122 --> 00:50:43,282 art yeah so he goes from right he goes from i don't know kung fu to i'm a master and those are 716 00:50:43,282 --> 00:50:48,562 we're not quite there right but i mean that's the way i think about skills yeah for agents 717 00:50:48,562 --> 00:51:04,022 Yep. So, yeah. And I think, well, so maybe to finish that, what do you what do you think is the first approachable step in terms of, again, building on not just consuming the product of of AI? 718 00:51:04,022 --> 00:51:06,722 You mean building your own application? 719 00:51:06,902 --> 00:51:09,882 So what might you recommend to a family member? 720 00:51:10,202 --> 00:51:13,042 You know, you're out hacking on OpenClaw and you're a developer. 721 00:51:13,682 --> 00:51:23,842 What would you say to a family member who you would want, just as with Bitcoin, to take a bit more control of as opposed to just be a consumer of? 722 00:51:23,842 --> 00:51:29,942 Yeah, I haven't approached a family member yet, but I think open call would be the thing. 723 00:51:31,462 --> 00:51:40,442 Not because it's, I mean, it's very new technology, it's very buggy, but it's very clear. 724 00:51:41,022 --> 00:51:51,002 If you get this telegram message working, you get the simple flow working, people can really see the value, the magic behind it, I think. 725 00:51:52,002 --> 00:51:52,422 Absolutely. 726 00:51:52,422 --> 00:52:01,442 so and and i mean open core is not as good at like like coding or something but for the average 727 00:52:01,442 --> 00:52:06,382 person that's fine they can build stuff it's very much general general purpose ai right is 728 00:52:06,382 --> 00:52:11,662 it's very good um and you can get it there like i basically rebooted mine i've tried a couple of 729 00:52:11,662 --> 00:52:19,122 things um and it's been it's been an interesting experiment from as i say building a skill where 730 00:52:19,122 --> 00:52:24,622 It can get itself on Noster and Post and Pay and all this, which is novel and interesting. 731 00:52:25,662 --> 00:52:32,882 I then tried the chief of staff, which then spins up all of the functional agents. 732 00:52:33,162 --> 00:52:38,002 And, you know, I burned through my Claude Max Pro 2X plan for the week and a day. 733 00:52:38,002 --> 00:52:43,022 That was a bad outcome, but a great learning experience. 734 00:52:43,022 --> 00:53:01,782 And now I have gleaned from a bunch of very talented developers how to really refine, you know, a very lean dev team, you know, and using Codex 5.3 to code versus Opus 4.6 to think and plan, you know, all these things. 735 00:53:02,062 --> 00:53:08,682 So I think to your point, it's evolving and it's far from perfect, but I agree with you that it's a great place to start. 736 00:53:09,482 --> 00:53:11,042 So Roland, let's wrap up here. 737 00:53:11,042 --> 00:53:19,562 Where is Albi in a year? What are you building that will further change how people think about use money and maybe AI agents? 738 00:53:19,562 --> 00:53:36,302 Yeah, so maybe if we tie that back to our journey with LB Hub the last two years, now I think we have such a strong foundation, right? We have the self-custodial wallet that's able to connect to any sort of application service. 739 00:53:36,302 --> 00:53:38,642 we have this really good foundation 740 00:53:38,642 --> 00:53:40,502 LB Hub itself is actually 741 00:53:40,502 --> 00:53:43,062 used by LB to charge 742 00:53:43,062 --> 00:53:44,942 subscription payments for people who 743 00:53:44,942 --> 00:53:46,782 subscribe like we're 744 00:53:46,782 --> 00:53:48,442 dogfooding more and more 745 00:53:48,442 --> 00:53:50,562 of our projects every day 746 00:53:50,562 --> 00:53:52,422 powered by LB Hub 747 00:53:52,422 --> 00:53:55,082 so I think 748 00:53:55,082 --> 00:53:57,062 right now we're going much into 749 00:53:57,062 --> 00:53:58,942 a more experimental 750 00:53:58,942 --> 00:54:00,322 phase to see what 751 00:54:00,322 --> 00:54:02,722 sort of use cases 752 00:54:02,722 --> 00:54:04,742 can be built with 753 00:54:04,742 --> 00:54:11,102 albihub i think ai is is going to make a big part of that the other thing we're working on is 754 00:54:11,102 --> 00:54:17,522 is further improving like our developer experience for example our experience for 755 00:54:17,522 --> 00:54:23,862 small to medium-sized businesses so they they if they use albihub you know accounting 756 00:54:23,862 --> 00:54:31,022 transaction labeling stuff like that um to to more easily operate and have less headaches when 757 00:54:31,022 --> 00:54:35,242 at the end of the year when they have to do accounting and things like that. 758 00:54:36,402 --> 00:54:39,022 Yeah, we'll be doing additional refinement. 759 00:54:40,642 --> 00:54:41,982 Actually, I didn't mention yet, 760 00:54:41,982 --> 00:54:49,822 we did recently release a huge improvement to our developer experience, 761 00:54:49,982 --> 00:54:51,582 which I think is quite interesting. 762 00:54:52,022 --> 00:54:54,302 I think I'm proud to say I'm pretty excited 763 00:54:54,302 --> 00:54:59,742 that I think we brought Albie actually to the absolutely forefront, 764 00:54:59,742 --> 00:55:04,242 the best tool for developing with agents. 765 00:55:05,662 --> 00:55:07,742 And there's kind of three parts to that. 766 00:55:08,642 --> 00:55:11,042 So I already mentioned that the skill, right, 767 00:55:11,102 --> 00:55:12,142 that you give to your agent, 768 00:55:13,362 --> 00:55:15,262 you install, Kung Fu in this case, 769 00:55:15,342 --> 00:55:15,902 you install... 770 00:55:15,902 --> 00:55:17,562 The jack-in in the back of the brain, yeah. 771 00:55:17,902 --> 00:55:21,142 Yeah, you install Nostra Wallet Connect LB knowledge, 772 00:55:21,442 --> 00:55:22,542 how to use LB tools. 773 00:55:24,442 --> 00:55:26,482 But we have another thing called 774 00:55:26,482 --> 00:55:29,242 Nostra Wallet Connect Faucet, 775 00:55:29,242 --> 00:55:32,862 And if you know about test networks, it's a common thing. 776 00:55:33,102 --> 00:55:38,982 When you're building an app, you won't use mainnet Bitcoin. 777 00:55:39,242 --> 00:55:41,002 You'll use a testnet Bitcoin. 778 00:55:41,642 --> 00:55:42,442 Play money. 779 00:55:43,042 --> 00:55:43,882 Yes, play money. 780 00:55:44,222 --> 00:55:46,842 But we made play money for Nostra Wallet Connect. 781 00:55:47,222 --> 00:55:51,042 So it's another level above Lightning, actually. 782 00:55:51,282 --> 00:55:53,082 It's kind of like you can almost think of it. 783 00:55:53,322 --> 00:55:55,122 So there's on-chain Bitcoin, then there's Lightning. 784 00:55:55,702 --> 00:55:58,402 And then Nostra Wallet Connect is like a third layer above. 785 00:55:59,242 --> 00:56:06,302 And it basically gives the agent's ability to spin up these fake Nostra Wallet Connect wallets as many as they need. 786 00:56:07,602 --> 00:56:17,562 And this is super powerful because it means the agent can actually write end-to-end test cases when it's building and actually test the whole flow of the app. 787 00:56:17,562 --> 00:56:29,782 So it can even spin up like a browser, you know, go through the app, spin up these wallets, make real payments and test the whole flow without without a human having to, you know, manually test. 788 00:56:29,782 --> 00:56:49,542 That is amazing. And I mean, for anyone who is a developer, they'll know it will be obvious to them that the ability to write these unit tests and to be able to truly stress test all components of the flow from, you know, inception of an action to complete payment, that's tremendous. 789 00:56:50,802 --> 00:56:53,222 Yeah, so I'm pretty excited. 790 00:56:54,142 --> 00:56:55,642 I can see it in your face. That's awesome. 791 00:56:55,642 --> 00:57:02,522 yeah because i mean i spent a lot of time and i was looking at um you know spark and arc maybe we 792 00:57:02,522 --> 00:57:08,722 can talk about that a bit but i also decided like um yeah so i was trying to find a way how can we 793 00:57:08,722 --> 00:57:14,462 make the onboarding even easier um but when we really stepped back and looked at what the 794 00:57:14,462 --> 00:57:20,902 developer experience is from the beginning uh how you build apps actually not even having to 795 00:57:20,902 --> 00:57:28,682 create a wallet for yourself is even better right so not even like a wallet without channels or a 796 00:57:28,682 --> 00:57:34,222 custodial wallet but just a completely fake wallet that that just works like a normal one 797 00:57:34,222 --> 00:57:39,202 you don't have any issues with testnet coins you don't have any issues with opening channels all of 798 00:57:39,202 --> 00:57:44,922 that is just thrown out the window and what you do is just focus on building your app and and so 799 00:57:44,922 --> 00:57:47,402 So I think this is really awesome. 800 00:57:47,602 --> 00:57:50,542 This is a huge achievement from us. 801 00:57:50,542 --> 00:58:01,902 So I think over the next year, I'm going to be excited to see people using it and see what people can build, especially with AI agents this year. 802 00:58:03,282 --> 00:58:03,782 Incredible. 803 00:58:04,042 --> 00:58:06,842 Well, we're going to do another one of these for sure, Roland. 804 00:58:07,022 --> 00:58:09,382 This is just so much great stuff going on. 805 00:58:09,702 --> 00:58:11,462 I really appreciate your time today. 806 00:58:11,542 --> 00:58:12,542 It's exciting what you're building. 807 00:58:12,782 --> 00:58:14,802 Thanks for Albie. 808 00:58:14,802 --> 00:58:17,682 Thanks for I'll be hub, I'll be go and all the great work. 809 00:58:17,742 --> 00:58:19,262 I use it every single day. 810 00:58:20,082 --> 00:58:20,542 You too, Sean. 811 00:58:20,682 --> 00:58:20,942 Thanks. 812 00:58:21,062 --> 00:58:22,322 Thanks for having me on the show. 813 00:58:23,222 --> 00:58:23,602 Pleasure. 814 00:58:23,862 --> 00:58:24,402 Talk soon. 815 00:58:25,202 --> 00:58:25,842 See you later.