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Obi, welcome for the first time to the Bitcoin Infinity Show.
uh, well,
We rebranded.
what is time in infinity?
Yeah,
No, no, it's the second time, great to have you back.
And you've had a big launch recently.
yeah, we have, it's been, it's been a wild ride and the journey is just beginning.
So yeah, thank you.
right.
So, so Fedimin launched, uh, two weeks ago.
Is it the Fedi
Fedi, launched?
launched?
Yeah.
These terms.
no, no, Fedi Mint launched, effectively Fedi Mint launched nearly five years ago.
FediMint is a very old technology, very, you know, the first, the first
FediMint transaction, um, where someone used FediMint e cash over Lightning to
buy a cup of coffee, which was after, you know, a year plus of development
was on, uh, I believe it was the 3rd of the 8th, 3rd of August, 2021.
And so we're trying to, like you have a Bitcoin Infinity Day, we're
suggesting, that was actually Erik, my, the inventor of Fedi Mint.
Um, from Parinelli Police, just actually, and um, so I like to think
of that as uh, e cash coffee day.
Cause actually it was like, you actually bought the cup of coffee with e cash.
Um, so yeah, but yeah, Fedi finally launched two weeks ago.
All right.
So, so I think, um, for those who haven't seen the previous episode with you, if
they want to know more about you, we should probably go back to that episode,
but I think you're going to have to do the TLDR on what Fedi is for our listeners.
Like that's a good start, I think.
So yeah, and now we can be clear about what Fedi is.
And so Fedi, um, is two things still.
Even Fedi is two things.
One is the company called Fedi and the other is this product called Fedi.
So if we talk about the product that people have on their phone,
Fedi is a community super app.
And so it's an app that takes the best of freedom technology.
So it's got Bitcoin functionality in it, Lightning connectivity, obviously
FediMint for handling community custody.
Um, but it's also got Nostr support and any other freedom technology that's
out there that's mature and reliable.
We've taken the time to integrate into one simple to use app.
So it's, it allows you to have chat.
We use Matrix as this federated, um, decentralized,
uh, encrypted chat protocol.
It has money with the combination of Lightning, Bitcoin, and Fediment and more.
So it has a built in web browser inside it.
And therefore you can access all of the Bitcoin ecosystem of
apps from Bitrefill to Unleash.
chat to BTCmaps and beyond.
All in one place.
So you don't have to have this smorgasbord of, of a cornucopia of different apps and
tabs open one app to, to use them all.
And the app itself, we announced as well, is now source available and will
eventually be open source as well.
So we're trying to make the best of it.
portal into the freedom technology space.
So that's Fedi.
And then Fedi the company builds the Fedi app.
And we also have something we call the FedEye Order, which is, um,
this selection of incredible people, FedEye Knights, who are on the ground
and they, you can think of them as like a Decentralized genius bar.
If you've got an iPhone, you have the genius bar that goes along with the phone.
The reason why the iPhone is so amazing is not just the phone, but it's also
the incredible support you can get.
If you can go to an Apple store and you go to the genius bar, they can help you.
We have that, but we have that instead of it being in, you know, Fifth Avenue
or Oxford street in London or so on.
It's in, um, the capital of Togo or Uganda or.
Or, um, Guatemala, or so on.
On the ground, they will locate communities, they
will educate communities.
And they on, and they will support communities on Bitcoin, on Lightning,
on FediMent, on all of these different websites and services that are out there
to provide that sort of support that's needed for the communities that are
outside of the existing Bitcoin space.
Okay, great.
So, so how does a federation work?
Like, well, we need to go into that too.
so the first thing you have to do, wherever you custody is
where you transact and do and you live and so on, which is why.
Banks try very much when you're young to get you to hold a bank account
with them because they know that most people never leave and then
all other services are provided.
So how do you actually custody?
For many people they've had two choices.
Either they do everything themselves and that's the best if you can do it just like
it's the best to be able to build and fix your own car or house but not everybody
can do that but that is always the best because no one's going to love you.
And put as much care in as yourself.
The other extreme is to fully outsource it, fully give it to some private
party, which is actually what ends up 95 percent plus people doing, and
that's putting their money on a Coinbase or some other centralized service.
Um, and the same with communication.
They would use some sort of centralized service.
They would use a WhatsApp, an X.
com, a Telegram, a WeChat or so on.
They would use some centralized chat.
And if you think about it.
Our lives are communication and money and value.
So both those things, most people outsource, some people take it in house.
If I want to set up a federation, which is to do with the custody of the money,
where FedeMint is this middle, middle house, I can find within my community,
um, a number of trusted parties.
We call them guardians.
So let's say.
You found us three plus, you know, your great t shirt, Greg Voss.
The minimum we suggest is four for various Esoteric reasons From a cryptographic
security point of view we suggest four, but you can have seven You can have you
can keep growing you could have we've seen people have seen Federation stood
up with as many as 40 people in them And it will get slower and slower if it gets
beyond that, but, but technically you can.
It'll be this, it'll create this huge multisig, i.
e.
multiple people have to sign before you do a transaction on chain.
And so multisig starts to get expensive of a certain size.
But let's say us three plus Greg.
We would FedeMint software.
Um, we would download the 30 minute software onto a machine that we have
spare, um, and we would set up and run it.
The setup process will, part of it will enter the information
about the other three.
And we make that very simple, it's a web interface, you point and click and
you get a code and you share that code with the other, the other parties, they,
everybody shares the code of each other.
Maybe you go into a group chat and paste each other's code.
Everybody copies each other's, um, enters it into our own FediMint
and then they connect to each other and they form a federation.
And from then on.
As long as you keep that box, um, running, connected to the internet, and connected
to electricity, the federation, for each, all the four, the federation are one.
But because it's a federation, if one of them, for example, had a
power cut, or lost their internet, or had to change their domain name, or
something like that, The other three will be able to continue and operate.
Yep, so you've now created this community custody platform.
Now, anyone with the FEDI app or any other app that supports the FEDIMINT
protocol, Mutiny, although unfortunately Mutiny is looking to shut down, but
there's also Webimint, and we're hoping that many others will set up
FEDIMINT wallets, um, like there are multiple Lightning wallets in future.
Any FDI min wallet compatible wallets like Fedie, um, can connect to your
federation when you finish connecting.
At the end of setting up it will, the app will, the fed min server will show
a QR code and the string that represents how to connect to your Feder Federation.
So you could take your Fed app, uh, your Fed app, or, or the Mutiny
wallet, or Web Mint, or any other, um, fed mint compatible wallet,
and you'll scan that QR code.
And you've now connected to that federation and that federation
becomes, you can now use it to custody.
Yeah.
Now, what will happen is, um, if for example, someone wants to send
money to you, you would, um, just, just as if you're using a Bitcoin
wallet, let's say it's on chain.
Um, you would, you would say, I want to receive, um, enter the
amount and it'll show a QR code.
Someone else who's using a normal Bitcoin wallet will scan that code and send over
the Bitcoin main chain money to you.
But what's actually happening is you are communicating, your Fediap is
communicating with the Federation.
Your Federation is creating a Bitcoin address for you to send to and sends
it back to you for you to display.
Okay.
And then a user, someone else who's using a completely different wallet
will send money to that address.
Actually goes to the federation and they, the four of us combined will process
that and create e cash, which is like a token representation of the Bitcoin.
Um, I think of like in the same way, Tebra is a token representation of Bitcoin.
of, of fiat, but this is for Bitcoin.
And then the e cash will be sent to you.
But the way it, the way it's sent is completely privacy preserving.
So the, the guardians have no way of knowing who they are providing that
service for, who's receiving the money.
And, um, they don't, and at some point when you, um, spend it or someone else
spends it, They don't know that they, they issued you it when it was issued.
There's full privacy.
All right, and neither does the sender, I assume, like the sender
doesn't, well the sender knows,
that they sent Bitcoin to us and address.
They have no idea who, so if, so if there are, uh, let's say we set this
up and we're using it for our families and friends and families and extended
family families, and in total, there are 40 of us or 50 of us when you take
families and friends and uncles and so on.
Um, When you send to that address, there's no way to know
out of those 40 or 50 people who received it or who requested it.
All right, so, uh, a bit about like, like, the guardians and the multisig,
that's obviously because you don't want to have a single point of attack
for each, uh, federation, right?
point of failure,
A single point of
the more likely thing is that someone's machine, if you had one machine, the most
likely thing that will happen, almost guaranteed, at some point you'll have
some sort of power cut or internet cut.
Internet cut is probably the most likely you'll, you'll have a glitch
on your internet for 30 minutes.
If you do, you'll Everyone using your federation won't be able to
use your system for 30 minutes.
but it's also an attack vector.
Like if the, if the, uh, if there's a lot of money in the federation
and, uh, so there's, there's an incentive to attack the guardians.
Like, uh, uh, can you be completely sure that the guardians don't know each
other's identities and stuff like that?
Like how, I know you think a lot about the attack vector.
So I'm like, can you go into that a bit?
can't be completely sure of anything in life.
So the answer to that is automatically no.
Can you be completely sure of something?
Um, but, um, and it depends on the Also, there's an assumption that you have,
that the people don't know each other.
Cause I think very often in, there's two types of scenarios.
It could be that each party completely doesn't know each other, or the more
common scenario will be that you're some community or some group of friends.
And within you, you've decided.
Of the people who are my friends and family and so on, these four people are
the ones who are consistently the most reliable, the most trusted and so on.
They do know each other, but, and you all, and you know who they are, but, and
it's because you know who they are that you're comfortable with them holding.
It's, they're the Uncle Jims of the family.
It's like, so they're known and they're known to be reliable.
They're known to be people who care about their friends and family.
And that's very often actually what we're seeing is the more common
scenario than the ones where people are completely, um, anonymous to each other.
But as it matures, we may see the other scenario happen as well.
It's a literal uncle network.
I know Uncle Rockstar started the uncle network here on infinity day.
Like he should start a federation and make the uncle network an actual uncle network.
Yeah, you got three, you got the brother Luke, and so that's four, so we're
are you, are you an uncle?
am an uncle officially now.
an uncle as well, so,
are like, but dubbed by Uncle Rockstar or just an uncle.
I mean, like, well, I haven't been dubbed I, so
you are a good candidate.
I should suggest that to a grand uncle Rockstar.
candidate, but I, I am a, I am biologically now, uh, an
oh, congratulations,
Yeah,
Okay, well, so I think, I think we are looking just to dig in more
about Fedi Fedi Mint and, uh, well, I think, I think, so what, what
does your launch actually mean?
Because the app has been in beta for, for quite a while, right?
But what, what's happened, uh, to make it that you can launch?
Yeah, that's a very good question, because, um, we, the app from the, if you
just focus on the app, from the previous version to the one we went live, there
are, there are only a few, um, changes.
Uh, I can go for what they are, but it didn't really matter.
It was more about, um, did we have enough feedback from enough people on the
ground that we thought that the product was stable enough, reliable enough?
Um, behind the scenes, we've done a lot of internal Um, plus from
trusted friends, external security audits of different elements as well.
I don't like to publicize it because it's just something we do.
We don't think it's something you should promote to saying,
Hey, look at what we're doing.
We just try to build the best that we can.
Um, and the really, um, big thing was to just say, a lot
of people ask, is Fedi ready?
And we wanted to get to a line where we thought it was good enough.
And we got to that line.
And then, um, we also wanted to have enough proof points in, in, um, the world.
And again, we got to that line.
So these things were separate things that were happening.
And finally, um, we, um, it was very clear to us that we wanted to make
the software, Ultimately open source.
And that was a big call because, you know, we rested, well, 21
million, we raised 21 million and, um, normally you go two routes.
You go, you raise a little bit and you stay open source and so on.
Or you raise a lot and you stay closed source.
We believe that, um, over time, it's going to be considered, um,
over the coming years, it's going to consider that you should always
go open source no matter what you're doing, but we're in a transition.
Five years ago, raising this much and going open source would be
considered crazy, in five years time, raising this much and not being open
source would be considered crazy.
And we wanted to be, um, uh, afforded in that.
So.
We actually went source available.
It's called a business source license.
So it means you go source available and you set a date where you
must go open source or earlier.
And we've, and we set those, those.
So we cannot, we cannot change it now.
We cannot say we're going to actually change our mind.
Well, the only thing we can say is that we're going to go open source earlier.
Um, that's the only thing we could do.
Or if we decide to shut down, it's automatically open source as well.
That's the sort of dead man's switch as well.
Or we decide we're no longer going to develop this point
this morning, um, the software.
Um, we've added, so we've added caveats like that, which are not optional, but
actually add more, um, more restrictions.
So no one's going to complain with us going open source earlier.
Um, so that was, that happened though, um, and was agreed and
put in place on May the 4th.
So May the 4th we review of this year, 2024, just for posterity.
Um, we, um, got enough proof points from different markets, um, that we
felt that we're onto something here.
Does that mean that we've finished?
No, there's a lot of work to do, but enough to say that the idea
of taking all of the best of freedom technologies out there.
And putting them into one place and one app that's easy to use is
something that's compelling to people.
And also we had enough to see the federation model.
of this sort of really simple to use and privacy preserving multi
sig is also a powerful model.
So the model was proven out.
And then finally the software, we got to a point where we thought, it's, of course,
we've got years of more development, but it was good enough as well.
I think that was the final piece.
And we thought, okay, we're ready to go.
And we then set a date a week, a few weeks after that.
But even when we were getting close to it, we started the process of shooting
a video because we just wanted to show You know, people are wondering what were
we doing for the last nearly two years and we wanted to show that as well.
Well, what's the synopsis of the last two years?
Like the big highlights?
Um, so, uh, I always say there's three phases in the business.
There's initialization, um, of a startup, initialization, market
product fit, in our case, not product market fit, I can go into why.
And then, um, growth.
And so, this phase that was, the end was finally, we crossed the
line, um, on August the 6th, 2024, was the initialization phase.
And so, if you think about the analogy of, like you, I don't know, you wanted to have
a A shop selling designer pet clothing, and you've, you've, you've decided you
have this crazy idea and you have to first fund it, find the people to build
it, and then find the place, set up the store, make the clothes and, and, or open.
That's the initialization phase.
And then once it's launched, you then.
Start figuring out, okay, people come in, there's initial, um, interest, and then,
you know, you have this trickle of people coming in, you have to figure out how, um,
what do they like, what do they not like, what do I have to adjust until it becomes
this sort of regular viable business.
That's the market product fit phase.
And then you start saying, okay, I've got something that's working fully and,
and, and then I will repeat it, make more and more and more, um, I don't know.
Widgets?
Doggy fashion, Excel stores, whatever you want to call it.
So, so the, so the last two years was our initialization phase.
So we had this, amazing product with FediMint.
Um, we had this initial set of, Of, uh, crazy people with Erik, the, the
inventor of FedEvent, um, Justin, who's, who was also incredible engineer, uh,
who was actually the one who suggested that we make a commercial enterprise.
Cause up until that, both myself and Erik just suggested it
would be an open source project.
And then myself as well with my just, uh, you know, only maybe six or seven months
before we were finally finished selling.
Um, a Bitcoin exchange, the UK's longest running Bitcoin exchange.
Um, and so having that experience of building a company that was profitable
and understanding what it meant to build something that custodies a
large amount of money for people and provides them services and so on is
easy to use and all that sort of stuff.
Um, and everything around that customer service, everything around that.
So, we were there, um, I had a visit to the Oslo Freedom Forum,
and that was the catalyst.
We, we did one talk at, uh, um, Bitcoin Miami, um, and, uh, Alex
Gladstein saw that, he suggested I go to Oslo Freedom Forum.
I went, um, my mind was blown and I also realized not only that, that, um, whenever
you're thinking about a business, you have to always think about chicken and
the egg and how do you find your initial market for eventually this product is
applicable to everybody everywhere, but who's the first use case that has a,
who has a demand so high that they're going to willing to go through the really
buggy early versions and, and help you.
Stabilize it to the point where it's something that people can click
a button and it works everywhere.
Um, and I realized that the community of human rights defenders and, and
later on also humanitarian organizations fit that, that, um, they had a need.
We really cared about that need and we were concerned, we wanted to help,
but we realized that this product could help in combination with
the rest of the Bitcoin ecosystem.
That's what's quite cool.
FediMint is the thing that handles the custody, but you still need to buy
things, sell things, find things, and so on, and that's where the Fedi app also
comes into play, but without FediMint as the core to handle the custody,
the rest, the rest didn't make sense.
So that's, that's, there was a start.
Then we started, it was, then you had this sort of scene from like the
Magnificent Seven or so on where you're, you're finding your initial team members.
So we found Renato Rodriguez, I chased her for like six months ago.
She should have, you know, got a restraining order for six
months trying to get her to join.
Um, just if you look at the initial team, it was just everybody,
the whole team is amazing.
But it was just trying to find these incredible people.
Um, they tended to just immediately understand the value proposition and
the market we were trying to help and were already doing incredibly
well in their own careers, but there was something missing for them.
And when they saw this, it was like this fulfilled There's some other need
that they had beyond the monetary need.
The potential was amazing, but the mission side of it was what helped
us bring on this incredible team.
So I believe in philosophy, people, process, product.
The philosophy was amazing, who we're helping, the potential,
it's helping people and in so doing we're helping Bitcoin, in
so doing we're helping the world.
And that's a powerful philosophy and mission and that attracted
this incredible group of people.
And if you've got the philosophy and you've got an incredible group of
people, they will put in the processes that will lead to the right product.
And so I, I like to take credit, but the reality is, is I don't do that
much on a day to day on the ground.
It's like, let's say the video, for example.
Um, uh, it was quite crazy.
I said to Renata, I want a really powerful launch video and it should be like the
best Apple keynote speech combined with a UNICEF or Save the Children commercial.
That's it.
That's the whole brief and that whole video.
And somebody says, you need to go to Madeira.
You need to say this.
And I just woke up and I say what she says.
But the whole elements of it, all of it was her and her team, um, you know, Mary
and marketing and everybody building that over the following X months.
And I, and I didn't actually see the video myself.
Until less than a month before we launched it for the first time as a rough draft.
And it was just basically perfect.
My comments were like, uh, I actually didn't have any significant comments,
but that was the same for most of the team and the design of the product.
We had this incredible designer, Skylar.
Um, I would give a brief and so as, um, Erik's brief was, I just want to
be proud of something that I should be proud of, and that was it, you know?
And I was like, it just needs to be really simple.
And that's the high level.
And I might give comments on a little bit here or there, but in general, whenever
he gave me it, I would say, well, he Skylarized it, like just Skylarize it.
And he would just come up with something that was great.
And, um, and I think that was the last two years.
We had the team we raised.
Um, again, the choice of investors was really, really key.
Uh, I was very, very, very sure, especially from my previous
experiences, that I only wanted Bitcoin on the investors, especially
for the first couple of rounds.
And when I've sometimes do talks on how to set up a Bitcoin company, my
first slide says don't do it, but, uh, and so a Bitcoin startup, I say,
don't do it, but instead sort of a Bitcoin business, not a Bitcoin startup.
And I explain the difference between the two.
Um, and, um, but one part is, um, if you do want to raise capital, be really
careful about your choice of investors.
The wrong investors will, well, and they don't mean to, but they will
kill your business without meaning to, but the right investors will.
So, uh, we were really, really careful about our choice of
investors and the initial team and then the initial team brought on
the rest of the team after that.
And that was the last, that's the last two years we've set ourself up very well.
I did, being a classic entrepreneur, think it'll take six months, took two years.
So I, so my estimation on that was a little bit off, but the end
result, I'm really excited about.
And now, now we're, now we're off to the races.
Great news, everyone!
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And, and how, how does, uh, are you monetizing this any, in any way?
How does the app make money?
Yeah.
For the company?
if you use the app, um, whenever you use the Freddie app.
Um, whenever a transaction happens, which would have occurred a fee.
So it's a Bitcoin transaction, e cash or a lightning transaction.
We add on an additional fee, 21, 21 basis points.
So 0.
Oh, yeah,
And so, um, and the good thing is because we can charge in sats and I
believe actually even fractions of a sat, it's a progressive tax, which a fee.
So what I mean by that is.
If you're sending, um, let's say 100 through, then you would be charged on 100.
21, but if you're, worth of value, but if you're sending through
1, then you'll be charged 0.
21 cents.
And if you're sending through 0.
10, you'll be charged 0.
20.
0 to 1 cents.
So it'll always be a very small percentage of what you're sending.
Now, people might say in certain countries, don't they
have mobile money and so on.
But the problem is those mobile money systems have minimum fees.
And it might be, so it might be, um, 1%, which is not, I mean, we're still
better, but it's not that bad, say.
And it might be, even in some terms of scale, it could be half
a percent, but asterisks, but with a minimum fee of 20 cents.
So if you're sending a hundred dollars, that's okay.
But if you're, uh, if you're sending, um, 1, that's 20%.
And so if you have someone who has a monthly salary of.
10 in some of these markets, that 0.
20 fee starts becoming quite a significant per transaction hit.
So therefore it becomes unaffordable for you to use mobile money.
So even though it's, it's prolific, it's prolific above a certain wealth
level, you know, and uh, and so that leaves many, many people out,
out, um, out in, uh, in the rain.
But because this is progressive, if you're selling 10 cents, the, the, the,
uh, fee will actually round to zero.
I mean it will be a fee, but you'll see it in sats, but if you were showing,
trying to show it in, And even in local currency, it would basically be, it'll
say about zero and then you click and you realize it's this small amount of sats.
so, yeah.
Uh, the, the, the big thing that, that I'm thinking of if I'm like.
Playing this out in my head with where this could be in 10 years, like
you, you could run entire virtual nations on a federation, right?
If you have the money and the communication and
whatever other useful apps,
I think the, the big, the big thing I think is, um, I think if you look
at the internet, um, there are large organizations where, um, people use and,
and, and they're highly centralized.
You have a few people who may be wealthy enough to have their own direct connection
to the internet, but the majority of people are connected on the internet.
I don't know at this stage, millions of intranets, like household intranets
effectively, um, company intranets and school intranets and so on,
where it's one connection to the internet shared by multiple people.
That's actually the majority of people.
And it's that middle ground between these huge mega organizations that
people are connected to one mainframe.
With millions of users, I think there are very few of them now, but that was
the denominant way at the beginning.
It was these huge, centralized ways of connecting AOL, CompuServe, and so on.
Now, they're actually relatively rare, but that was at the beginning.
All of the internet was that.
A few centralized parties, and I would liken them, conceptually in value terms,
in value custody terms versus information custody terms, to, um, a coin basis.
And also there were a lot of hobbyists who had their own direct
ISDN connection to the internet.
Um, but now most people connect through these intranets where they get one
router, one connection, and they share with everybody in their household.
That would be a criminal of the Uncle Jim federations or in their school or in
their football club or in their office.
That's probably 95 percent of people and I think that this approach of
federated model from the size from.
Five or six people up to five or six hundred thousand, that, that range
can cover 80, 90 percent of usage.
Can we go back to a little bit of a, the, the sort of the basics of, of how
feint works in the, in the perspective of someone actually using this thing?
So, so you, you explained to us last time some somewhat how it
works, but just for my own sanity, check that I, that I got it.
Something like that.
If, if you are sending e cash within the federation, that that all is just.
Direct between two users.
There's not even any, essentially a record outside of that.
No one knows those transactions are even happening.
Is that essentially correct?
Yeah.
So the federation creates, um, well, helps you mint technically, I would
say mint because it, because actually the user creates their own e cash,
but actually funny enough, um, they create their own e cash, but it's
unstamped and then they give it to the federation and they stick in an envelope.
And then they, and they, they give it to the federation with, with some carbon copy
paper on the inside the envelope as well.
And the federation collectively signs.
So let's say all four people go stamp, stamp, stamp.
And that makes a, just for simplicity.
And then that makes it valid.
And then they give back the envelope to the user.
The user then opens the envelope with the cache that they created, just a
random, some random piece of data.
And they now have this Ucash, but the, but the, the Ucash they've created
now has got the five, the four stamps on it, say, for the four of us.
And so anyone else in that, in that federation, any other, um, person who's,
who's also connected to the federation.
They can just literally, directly give them this, this
random, random set of data.
Let's say it's a picture of a fashionable dog and, and they
can just give it to someone else.
But the picture of the, and the person will receive it and they
don't really care what the data says.
They just look, are the four, four, four stamps on it?
Yes.
Then it means it was stamped by the Federation, which means it's backed
by a certain amount of information.
Actual Bitcoin.
Yeah.
So take the whole, uh, the full path.
Someone deposits some Bitcoin in return.
They also, along with the Bitcoin, send them an envelope, give them an
envelope with, with this random piece of data in it to the Federation and
the Federation receives the Bitcoin.
Okay.
I've received the Bitcoin envelope.
Okay.
I've received the Bitcoin.
I will stamp.
I, and I received one, um, you know, uh, let's say.
10, 000 Satoshis.
So I'm going to take my 10, 000 Satoshi stamp and stamp this envelope
with 10, 000 Satoshis, pass it around to the other four, they all
stamp the 10, 000 Satoshi stamp.
And then give that back to the user.
User opens the envelope and says, I've got, okay, I've got an e cash note with,
with, that's been proven that the, that it's been validated by the guardians.
So as long as we all trust the guardians are holding that and that
they will honor this and redeem.
That's it.
So now I can pass it to anyone in the Federation.
They receive it.
They look at this picture of the, the, the cute dog, but what they're
really looking at is, is it got the four stamps on it and it's 10, 000.
So that means I've now received 10, 000 token.
They can now at some point in the future, Often they do it
immediately if they've gone into connection, but they don't have to.
They can give it back to the, um, to the Federation.
Federation will receive it and each one will check their own
signature of the guardians.
Okay, yep, yep, yep, it's, it's properly signed.
Therefore, I'm willing to, and as long, with the, with it, they
might give them a Bitcoin address to send the money on chain to.
So they will receive it, okay, it's received, it looks good, they
will then, um, record that this, um, e cash note has been spent.
But they don't know, of all the e cash they received, which one it was,
because they, each one they received in the first place was in an envelope.
So was it the first one they received, or the middle one they received?
They have no idea.
It could have been received yesterday or a month ago.
No way.
All they know is, I must have stamped it, so it was one of the ones I stamped.
And then they will look at the address the person's asking to send the Bitcoin
to, and they will take some of the Bitcoin that they're holding in the
multi sig that we're holding between the four of us and send it to that address.
So that's called Redeem versus Mint.
Now, um, the user experience from a user, we can get onto Lightning, that's
another level of complexity, but it's simple just for Bitcoin and eCash for now.
Um, for a user, I open up my app.
And I, um, want to receive Bitcoin, um, outside, I would give a Bitcoin address.
Someone sends me Bitcoin or I send it to myself from an outside
wallet and I receive e cash.
And then someone else in the, in the federation wants to, um, once I want
to pay them some e cash, they will give me, um, they will give me a QR code
to, to scan to pay and I will scan.
And literally the e cash that's on my phone gets sent to them directly.
From me to them, one to one, that person when they receive it could keep it on
their phone or they could say, you know what, I want to send that back to the
federation and they can send it back to the federation and then the federation can
destroy that, issue them new, fresh e cash in different denominations, maybe not 10,
000, but 10, 1, 000, you know, just like with notes, you could go and get change.
Just like if you go to a post office and ask for change,
or they can send it on chain.
Yeah, because if someone transacts, right, if you're saying it gets sent from
one computer, phone being a computer, whatever, one device to another,
well, that original device would still
Yes,
copy of the thing on, right.
So they will still have a copy.
Now you are in the same, this is where the community aspect works,
you are in the same community, so.
If you're in the same community, um, and the person, you know, it's
a merchant and you receive, and your, your phone will remember when
you received what e cash, yeah?
Even though it's private, you do know this e cash was received at this time and
this time and this time for, and so, um, especially when you integrate with things,
points of sale, it will say, well, you received this e cash for this purchase.
You'll know that.
Um, so then if it's, then if you go to redeem it, let's say at the end of the
day, and some of it doesn't, um, doesn't match, you will know as the merchant,
which e cash was involved in that.
You'll say, well, the e cash involved in this transaction.
And that transaction was with John.
So you've got proof of work.
There's also, uh, um, POW.
There's also POP, which is proof of punchability.
You know, so you can just walk up to them and say, uh, you gave me dud money.
It's, it's, it's the same as if you have a merchant and you receive cash and then you
finally got the end of the day to a bank.
And some of the notes are counterfeit.
Now, you don't find high levels of counterfeit notes in a community
where people know each other.
It's normally in these widespread communities.
But in those scenarios, what most people will do and how the default way the
app works is the moment you receive it, it immediately, um, goes off and, the
moment you receive it, it immediately goes off and, uh, and redeems it and
then issues itself back new, new change.
Yeah, that seems like a good default implementation.
Yeah.
but it doesn't, but if you have no, but the, the beautiful working that way,
if you have no internet connectivity, you can still use it and still receive.
Even, even if you can't send over the internet, you can create, you can create
a QR code, which contains the e cash in the QR code, and the person can literally
scan it and receive through the screen.
Because as long as it's the QR code, the e cash note is just some text.
So a QR code can represent that text and you can scan it, even if you have no data.
So for example, um, it could be you're in an area where you have no
data, rural, Latin America or so on.
But it could also be something more innocuous.
You could just be in a, in a big sort of, But the thing is is that you might be at
a Glastonbury like concert and there are a thousand phones and there's no data.
Or you're in an indoor conference place underground and there's no data.
But you can still take payments or the merchant has internet because
they're the ones who really need it.
But the, but the, uh, But the buyer doesn't and so in which case the merchant
has internet because they're connected wired in because they're they're fixed,
but the the but the But the the buyer doesn't the buyer doesn't need to have
internet to pay and the merchant will will will check or they'll just take a risk
They'll they'll just take a risk just like in most merchants in high streets they
accept a certain amount of breakage and a certain amount of transactions are gonna
be Um, double are gonna be charged back by, um, credit card companies and so on.
I used to, I used to work for, I used to be a CTO for a major pan-European,
um, um, online auction company.
At the time I was competing with, with, uh, eBay and so on.
Uh, it was, I mean, we were in a headliner, 300 hundred people
working for me in technology.
It was a very big technology offering.
And we were doing millions of transactions a week.
It was very, very, um, very high volume.
And you just, in those e commerce sites, you just accept a certain amount of
breakage, a certain amount of returns, and a certain amount of chargebacks,
even if you do nothing wrong and you just factor it into your costs.
For the benefit of the simplicity of the experience.
you mentioned Nostr before, like, what's the marriage between Fedi and Nostr?
Like,
Well, I would say right now, we are, um, we are, uh,
because I think.
we're beyond dating.
We're engaged.
But we want to really take the two footed tackle of no return,
to use a football euphemism.
And,
a web of trust thing, right?
Yeah, I think, whenever, from the first point I saw Nostr, a lot of people thought
it was just social media and so on.
I think social media is, is
Trojan horse is the wrong word, but it's the, it's the, um, initial vector
by which it infiltrates communities.
But what you're actually doing is building a simple, um, trust system
and a simple discovery system.
It's a form of decentralized search and it's a form decentralized identity.
Cause you, to search, you have to identify things to be able to search.
So they're, they're sort of two sides of the same coin.
Um, now the first thing you're using it for is identifying people who want to
speak publicly and share their thoughts and so on and so forth and follow
them and, and give feedback and like.
But it always seemed to me to, um, way more powerful than that.
And I think now people, generally understand it that way.
And so, um, What we've already done, um, in Fedi, and a lot of developers really
like the way it works, um, if you sign up to Fedi, or if you download the Fedi
app and start using it, you, um, first of all, you don't need to give your email,
you don't need to give your phone number because it's, it's, it's not required,
but, um, we do ask you to come up with some sort of Username for yourself.
That doesn't even have to be unique, by the way.
We will add a unique element at the end, um, from it.
But what we do is, um, whenever you create that label, which you can change the name,
but we create, um, uh, an NSEC, which is a Nostr, um, identity effectively.
A unique identity and we automatically create that for you.
So again, for our users, we don't want to start educating them on the history
of Austrian economics and Bitcoin and inflation at the beginning or, or a Nostr,
et cetera, and how it works and relays.
And uh, we just want them to start using it.
And then subtly over time we expose certain features of it.
So people become curious and then eventually.
You want to learn how this thing that's delivering value works, but we've put
proof of work first, proof of talk second.
So we educate through letting people see the benefits.
And then there might be some people might say, well, how does this car thing work?
Or how does this fridge thing work?
But I don't need to know how refrigerant works to be able to use a fridge or
how microwaves work to use a microwave.
I might want, I may, I may never want to know, but some people will.
Be inquisitive and then they'll go to the next stage and then we're ready
with the Fedi Knights to educate them When they want to know how all this
stuff works, but we benefit first.
So, um, and so and that's how it works with Nostr We
immediately give you an NSEC.
And so because we've got that if you go and use unleash.
chat, for example within the app It will go and you click login and
there's one option login by Nostr You click that and it'll just within
the app pop up something saying Nostr Do you want to log in with Nostr?
And you click yes, and you're logged in and it just works and then you, and then
also now you're logged in and then you can, and then you click, um, um, deposit
money and instead of having to go to a different app, copy and paste the QR
codes, it just, it pops up and says, do you, this, this, what the app's asking
you to deposit this amount of money?
Do you want to go ahead?
Yes.
And then it's e cash.
Is, is converted into lightning and then that you pay by lightning.
But from your point of view, there's a circling key for three or four seconds.
You have now credited your account.
Do you want to withdraw the money back account?
You click withdraw the amount.
Three or four seconds, it's been withdrawn to your account and,
and it's all within the same app.
Um, so, but that only works because now if you, um, close the app or
delete the mods, because you can delete these mods or these additional pieces
of functionality, they're basically webpages, but the icon for them, and
they have an app like experience, but they're actually just webpages.
Um, and then you go away and then you come and then you
delete the app from your service.
And then.
Like six months later, you, you come back, you, um, you, you enter your
12 words, you're, you're re log on.
And then if you scan to join a federation again, it will recognize that you were a
member of the federation before, and it will reconstitute and recreate all your
e cash and put it back on your phone.
And then if you click on, um, um, Unleash your chat or Stacker News or
anyone that supports logging by Nostr.
Your login with the same details and so on.
So you basically, um, and we want to make that even more seamless.
So from 12 words, your entire life can you think about moving from
one mobile phone to another, where you have to move all your apps,
your banking apps, your chat apps.
And now you could do that with just go and also try moving from an iPhone to
an Android phone, Android to an iPhone.
It's a nightmare.
Here you could just download the Fedi app on your iPhone.
Um, this is some far point in the future.
You don't have just chat, but you also have voice.
You have video, all of that running from encrypted chat.
Um, you have access to money from, um, and, and, and, and custody and payments.
You have access to all these apps and then you back up 12 words.
And there's something we call social backup, which is mind
blowing, but, uh, that's in beta.
But let's just say backup 12 words, and then you delete that app, go to a
different phone, could be an Android or an iPhone, and you just enter 12
words, and your entire thing comes back.
Not partially back, not, not, not, but it all will come back.
Um, based on just those 12 words and that's part, that's only made possible
because of Nostr and we want it over time.
mean, when you think about it, it's insane.
It's already insane with bitcoins, with the 12 magic words, because like
every time I pass a security check at an airport, I think that go ahead,
have my 200 milliliters of toothpaste.
I'll, I have my 12 magic words, like it's the ultimate fuck you to, to anyone trying
to meddle with your business, right?
But now you can, you can simply.
You burn a phone in one country, buy a new phone in another country, and
you can have your entire online life.
that's the dream.
I mean, we're not fully there, but it's, I would say it's like, we're like 90
percent there, but, but to extend beyond just your Bitcoin, um, Nostr is, is
the protocol that allows us to do that because, because it's notes and other
stuff and the other stuff can be, um, Um, an encrypted version of the, all of
the settings and so on that you have that we can store and be willing to pay for.
And then, then when you recover, We can then, um, we, we, you have
your bitcoin, but then you can go off and send a request to say here,
I'm willing to recover this file.
Here's some zaps for the file and you get the file back and that additional
file then contains the information.
Okay, these are the federations you are a member of, you rejoin them.
These are the mods that you had, they're reset up.
These are the settings you had, they're reset up.
And then you log on them automatically using Nostr as well,
uh, the NSEC and Nostr login.
And, but from your point of view as the user, 12 words, it's back.
I mean, you might have to have a, you might have to drink a cup of coffee
while it's happening, but you know, 5, 10, 20 minutes later, it's back.
it's amazing, and it's an inheritance plan.
Like, you can live forever by just letting your descendants, giving them the
12 words when you're on your deathbed.
backup also becomes really powerful, because social backup means that,
um, cause, cause the 12 words is still another thing to secure.
And it's sort of one of these turtles all the way down type scenarios.
Okay.
We've got all this incredible security Fort Knox like, but behind them, but
I walk around the back of the Fort Knox is these 12 words that's stored.
You know, on a, on a fridge with a fridge magnet, because, because, you know,
because you're storing it really securely.
Of course, you're a fridge.
But you also give one to your cousin and you say, look after this as a backup.
And your cousin stores it on a fridge magnet.
You know, you don't know, or you don't know your, your, your security
is the lowest common denominator.
For your 12 words.
And
is never stronger than the weakest
then the weakest link.
And so with social backup, which is definitely an early beta.
Um, um, what we can do is use the power of the federation where we can
take your 12 words, um, encrypt them and then split it up between the
four guardians in this case, or seven guardians or 40 guardians or whatever.
For larger federations, and they all hold a piece of your
encrypted piece of your, of
is important here.
Yeah.
Knut, what are you doing over there?
I'm stamping my seed.
Everyone tells me I should, that it's good for bitcoin security and whatnot,
and that I should go balls deep into bitcoin security, so I'm stamping.
You don't do it like that, Knut.
You don't stamp that seed.
You stamp your seed phrase.
What?
Your seed phrase.
Oh, so that's what these things are for.
All of this stuff that they sent me.
Like, oh, oh, I get it now.
That's exactly right, Knut.
And you can get everything you need to stamp your seed phrase at stampseed.
com.
And be sure to check out our limited edition Everything Divided
by 21 Million Titanium Seed Plate.
And use code INFINITY at checkout for 15 percent off.
That's fantastic!
And it hurts way less!
So this gets me back to what happens when one of the guardians drops off, and if
it's like in a permanent way, if they, if that one guardian is holding a piece of
everyone else's 12 words, does everyone
Yeah.
But it uses a prot, it's, it's, it's, it's, this is crypto,
where cryptography comes in.
So it's not, it's not like.
We've taken your 12 words and split it up free, free, free,
free between four guardians.
Instead, you encrypt it using a scheme that allows each one of the four of
us to have a cryptographic piece.
But as long as any three of us combine our piece together, we can recombine.
Uh, we can comb by recon.
It is, it's a, it's called, um, SHAIR Secret Sharing Scheme, but it's, it's a
way of cryptographically achieving that.
Excellent, and well, so, and I think you mentioned last time as well that if a
guardian does go down, essentially you can replace that guardian, and, and, I
would, well, okay, can you take us through that, adding or replacing a guardian
if that ever were to need to happen?
replacing a garden is, um, probably one of the most complex things.
And so you wouldn't necessarily replace a guardian, but what you would do
is, uh, some, if someone were to go down, there's two different things.
The machine.
Or the guardian, the actual person.
So if the machine goes down, you can set up a new machine and you
can recover the status of that.
You can, you can download the 30 minute software on that new machine.
So that's the actual server that's running.
And that will then connect to the rest of the federation and, and carry on.
So as long as the guardian has a backup of their keys, they can recover
that one machine and, and catch up and it'll automatically catch up.
Just like if you turn off a Bitcoin node and turn it on, it
will recon, it will reconnect to the Bitcoin network and catch up.
It's a similar concept.
So, so that's if a machine went down, if a machine was temporarily disconnected from
the internet or, uh, lost power, it would just restart and reconnect and, and you
will have zero downtime as a user, as long as it's free, still running and active.
And this will all be, you'll, you'll notice that the performance, the
performance will still be the same, but you, if you went into settings for
that federation, you'll see that three of the four are running, so one is not
running, but that won't affect your usage.
Is the N of M like a ratio, or is it always N 1, for example?
Like a
It's a ratio.
It's, um, it's, uh, um, the number of guardians that, um,
you, um, Um, you need to have is dependent on how much redundancy.
So if you want to be, if you want to be able to handle one guardian
going down, then you'll need to have, um, one times by three plus one.
So that's four.
So that's why you need three or four.
Um, if you want to handle two going down, then you need two times by
three plus one, which is seven.
So it's five of seven.
7 of 10, 9 of 13, and so on and so forth.
You can have more than that, but the time that you get additional redundancy is
every 3, but you can have, you can have, for example, 4 of 5, if you wanted to.
Anyway, so, yeah, in the event that someone goes down, that the machine
goes down, Um, that you can recover.
Um, recently there was an issue where one machine, um, where two
federations, um, had an issue with the domain name for one of those servers.
And so if the domain name for someone is no longer available, um, you can now, with
the update that came out a couple of weeks after that, you can, you can modify, um,
the domain name for a, for a guardian.
Um, for a Guardian 30 minute server, and it would communicate that securely
with the other, uh, Federation servers and, and then reconnect
and, and, uh, continue to operate.
But it's important to, even in that scenario where the Federa uh,
Guardian, the domain name server went down, the Federation itself,
Continue to operate because there was still at least free running.
So there was no downtime for the user.
Whereas if, if we hadn't been federated, then for the one week or so where that
was down, the users would have had no access at all, which would be the case
where you're connecting to a centralized or a single server, um, offering.
Um, now, if you're, if one of the guardians, for some reason, um, the
actual people who are running the Fedemyst server, for some reason, you
no longer trusted them, they'd, they'd been helpful all their life and all
of a sudden they decided, or they've been, they've been turned by some,
some, um, um, you know, um, malevolent, uh, malevolent nefarious um, actor.
Then you, if you could in theory pass to someone else, but in practice, you
know, how do I know that the other person isn't still going to continue
to operate it and so on and so forth.
So what you actually want to do is set up a different federation and
transfer people, the other three guardians and inform people with
a different set of four people.
So those three, plus someone else.
And just tell people to transfer their balances across.
But transferring balances across is, is as easy as doing a lightning
transaction from one server to another.
You can, you know, within the FEDI app, be a member of multiple
federations at the same time.
I mean, right now, I mean, I'm a bit of a power user, but I'm a member of, I
don't know, um, over a dozen different federations from around the world.
I mean, well over a dozen, I think, yeah.
Um, and as we've, I'm sure there's people in the team with way more than that.
Um, um, but obviously I can't advertise the names because many of
them are, are private federations.
So, but there's a few public ones, but there's way more private ones.
So is the, is the e cash, if you're in multiple federations, is it interoperable
there, or it's like a more like a, it's a lightning transaction between those two
federations, but it's e cash that lives
You got it.
It's, it's, um, E cash lives within its federation, but the interoperability
layer for most people is not on chain.
It's for the vast majority of people, it's Lightning, so, but the user
experience of sending e cash from one person to another in the same federation,
sending e cash from one person to someone else receiving Lightning.
on a different wallet that's got nothing to do with Ferdie Mint.
And finally sending e cash from one person in one federation.
To someone else in another federation over the Lightning Network in
between is exactly the same.
From your point of view, QR code scan and the system will combination of
the Fedi app and or whatever Fedi Mint compatible app you're using and Fedi
Mint servers will make the experience It will figure out in this case.
I just need to send the person the cash.
In this case I just need, I can send e cash out over Lightning
and that's my job is done.
And then the other side would be a Lightning wallet and it will receive.
And in this case, I will send e cash over Lightning to another federation,
but I don't even know if it's another federation, it's just a Lightning address.
And then the other federation, um, receives, receives the transaction
and the other 30 minute server receives e cash on the other side.
But from a user's point of view, This is, this is the thing that also took the two
years to make the experience the same.
You just don't have to worry about which one is doing.
The fees will be slightly different.
One won't have a Lightning component to the fee, um, e cash to e cash, but, um,
the other two will because it will be like, in both cases, it will be e cash to
Lightning, um, from your point of view.
So is there a fee to, to send e cash to someone else in the same federation?
No, I guess.
Right.
It depends on the federation.
Um, so, uh, the federation, uh, could choose not to charge a fee and many in,
in these times choose not to because they're doing it for friends and family
and so on and the fees are, are minimal.
Um, but, um, the Ferryman protocol does support, um, what we call a DDoS fee.
So basically you can, you're, you're spending effort time to issue.
These notes to, to, well, not to issue, but to, to sign these notes,
the, the, the issuing is done by the user, but the, the stamping takes time.
You're, you're, you're, you're, you're creating, you're, you're signing something
cryptographically, that's effort.
And, uh, and you're also doing it in a federated manner, so you're coordinating
and then you're all collectively signing.
So, um, to avoid DDoS, um, you can, you can turn on a fee and, by our
calculations, it doesn't need to be very large, one sat per note that issued is
enough to prevent, because if someone really tried to DDoS you at scale, they
could, but on normal sort of consumer laptops or hardware, you know, they'll
have to spend, you know, hundreds of thousands a month at that sort of, you
know, At that, at one sat per note, and in which case you'll say, fine, you
know, you're, you're, you're giving me one, you know, hundreds of thousands of
dollars worth of Bitcoin to, to, to, to burn, you know, to, to burn my, um, CPU.
Well, not to burn it, but just to heat my CPU.
Um, so, but so you can charge a fee.
And I think, um, I think some will experiment with charging a DDoS
fee, which is similar to Bitcoin.
You know, the, the fees in Bitcoin are a DDoS protection vector.
So it's the same concept.
All right.
So, so, uh, what's on the roadmap?
What's going on?
How does the future look like?
What will you be working on the next five years?
And where do you see FedeMint going?
um, I, that's, uh, that's actually, this is, this is the most, uh, fun phase.
Um, up until now, um, we, we had a hypothesis and we had some early feedback,
but a lot of it was based on, um, a.
A hypothesis and fear, a theory as to what we thought people needed and, and
we felt that freedom technology had got to a stage where they were good enough
to provide this combined experience.
And that was a hypothesis.
And we think we've got early validation, but we built that.
Now it's life.
And now it's the, it's the fun, but it's also the scary bit because
we now actually see people using it and we test all our hypothesis.
And this is the point where you have to be very detail oriented, very much
listening to the users and listening to what they say and whatever they say.
We, we cannot ignore if, if, if there are.
Parts of our hypothesis that are incorrect, we have
to adjust to support that.
So it's going to be a lot of listening and we've already got
hundreds of requests for feedback.
Um, and then working to rectify, um, or deal with the questions
or feedback they've given us or the suggestions they've given us.
Um, and, and we're going to continue to iterate and then we bring it back
out to users and see what they think.
And we keep in that loop.
This is the market product fit loop until.
The product that we produce, um, fits the requirements of the, of the market.
Now, again, I, I'm hoping that takes six months or less, just like I hoped
it took six months or less to do.
Um, to for the initialization phase, but it might take less.
It might take a bit more, um, but it's, it's fun.
And, and that's the next phase.
After that, we then go into the growth phase.
Once we know we've got something that's repeatable, that really.
This sticky is really at the quality level that users need for it to be
used a daily part of their, their life.
We'll then go into growth phase and that's where we'll really, you know, um, pull
down, put our pedal to the metal and, and just repeat, repeat, repeat until.
You know, billions of people are using this around the world,
but that, that's phase three.
And I'm, I'm very focused on this phase.
You don't want to rush into phase three.
We're not going to rush to grow the numbers, um, until we are very sure that
we've got something that's really slick, really reliable, and where we're meeting
a clear demonstrable demand consistently.
And that, and that's the next stage that we call that, that process
is called human centered design.
So it's not focused on this is my app, this is what I want, and I'm going to keep
trying to make you agree with what I want.
It's, this is, this is what we've built.
This is our first stab at it, but we're going to keep iterating
until it serves your need properly.
And that might require some, this is the, this is what makes this one
very hard because it requires a very different mindset to the phase one.
Phase one is like We can do everything and the impossible is possible
and there's no, the phase two is a really, really being pragmatic.
Or very self critical and being very open to killing your darlings,
as the saying goes, you know, and saying this is not working or, or
there's some fundamental issue.
I mean, I don't think this will be the case at this stage, but if, if
the feedback was from our market that we need to make some fundamental
changes that would mean that 80 percent of the code we built has to be
thrown away and have to start again.
Well, that's what we're being told.
I, I, we've, we've got far enough to think that's highly unlikely.
But, um, um, cause most of the feedback, like some of the big pieces
of feedback cause how can we make it easier to set up federations?
So that's a really good sign because lots of people said there's only going
to be a demand for like free federations and it's going to be very centralized.
Well, like I, I very, I'll put it a very large percentage.
I don't want to give it.
These are the very large percentage of all our queries so far have been,
how can I set my own federation up?
So even based on those queries, there's not going to be free.
You know, I can put it that way.
Super quick question on that, I guess, uh, is it the Fetiman software?
Is it on, for example, the note in a box, uh, solutions,
the umbrellas, start nines, et
Well, that's part of the feedback that we're getting.
For example, it's like, can, um, can we set it up?
Can you integrate with Umbro?
Can you integrate with Start9?
Can you integrate with RastyBlitz?
Can it, can I, can you make it simpler to set up?
So, I think, um, a lot of that's done by the FediMint team.
Because remember, FediMint is an OpusSource project versus a
different OpusSource project.
Uh, well, we're not OpusSource here, we're SourceAvailable, but At some
point in the future, it will be two different open source projects.
However, we are using them as the bedrock, because if you want to
custody significant amounts of value We know that you want to go multisig.
Multisig for significant amounts of value is the best standard, so, so we, we, and,
and also you want privacy, so then privacy and multisig, that's FedEvent, basically.
Um, but, um, um, on the FedE side, we can do a lot as well.
So we can provide, even though it's open source software, we
can take it and provide it.
Um, again, it will be open source, but tools to help you build it really
easily or put efforts to integrate with people like Umbrell and Start9.
Um, we've already had an integration with an organization called Clover, um,
which we were, which we've been working on, and you're going to see more on that.
But from our point of view, that's a lot of where the work is.
Also you want to connect this to the internet, um, to, to the, not the
internet, to the Lightning Network.
Sorry.
And connected to the Lightning Network and maintaining a
reliable connection is not easy.
It's, it's, it's, it, it can be complicated for people,
especially managing liquidity.
And now again, over time, I could get easier, but right now it's not easy.
There are organizations like, Breeze and others who make that easy.
Um, and you just saw an announcement from Erik, where they've already started, um,
showing connectivity and support for LDK, which is this cross, um, LSP standard.
So, again, we at Fedi can provide tools for FediMint, or people who are using
FediMint, whether it's with Fedi or someone else, that make it really easy.
And again, our aim is one click, and you have a connection.
You can set up your own lightning node that's set up in a relatively good way,
so it'd be relatively reliable, but you don't have to manage it yourself.
Or, um, you can connect to one of these LSP's and for a fee, they'll just
handle all the light and management, but you're still in a trust minimized way.
So there's, there's a, but, but given all the feedback we're getting,
it's not, this is completely wrong.
You need to go back to the drawing board, it's all, okay, I get
it, but you need to go further.
You need to integrate with more.
You need to make it easier.
So, so I, so that's a good sign that we're on the right track.
Yeah.
So, so what, what about this date when you go open source?
Is that, is that public or, or when you, when you have to go
open source, it might be then or
in the, it's, it's, it's memorializing the business source license.
In fact, um, we memorialized it.
We actually have this memo memorializing when it happened.
Um, when we launched Freddy, we, we did this thing on the Bitcoin block.
You can see it.
We were established on, on a certain block.
Um, and, um.
And we said Fedi is here.
When we, um, quietly on May the 4th, we also put something that
said Fedi colon and it was a hash.
That hash is a hash of a memo.
And the memo, which is on our, Fedi's got an open source, you can
see the link and you can verify it.
Showed that on May the 4th, we, we, um, the code became business source license.
And by January the 3rd, 2026 or earlier, um, we must go, um, open source.
And if we were to shut down or to stop development, we
will instantly go open source.
Um, and so, so that, and we put it in block.
I tried to find a core block.
So it was block 8, 42069.
It was actually was the block that was the core block as well.
So, um, um, and so yeah, it's, it's there.
And, uh, um, that's the date.
We, we cannot go open source later than that.
And we may very well go open source a lot earlier than that.
Hey Obi, I think we could keep on grilling you on this and that little detail,
but this has been really enlightening, fantastic to see how far this has come,
even since our last conversation back in October, and yeah, just looking forward
to everything you guys are doing, and I guess just as a last thing, people
can now grab the Fedi app and Public federations are available to start to try
federations and there are, and you can set up your own federation and
we are going to be, um, working.
There's a lot, I don't like to talk too much about what's coming in future
because we just work on everything in order of customer demands.
So if customer demand comes in, that changes the order, but we're working
really hard to make it, um, It's already easy for if you're quite technical, um,
but we're going to make it easier and easier to set up a federation, so keep
looking out because that's a very common request to set up a federation yourself,
and we want to see what people do with it, um, create Fedi mods, um, create
federations, um, use it, give us feedback, and we will continue to work on making
an incredible, Open source interface portal to this freedom technology world.
Absolutely fantastic.
We'll need to keep on having these conversations regularly, get updates
because always fantastic to hear about this and good luck moving
forward and I think we'll be trying some FETI stuff in our futures here.
Lots of cool things have come out of Nostriga and Baltic.
Honey Badger by
I'm exciting to see that.
Yeah, it's a really exciting time.
And anywhere else you want to direct our listeners and viewers.
So for Fedi, that's probably the best place because everything, that's a
jumping off ground for everything else.
And that's Fedi, F E D I dot X, Y, Z.
Fantastic.
One of the cooler things that came out in Nostriga and Honeybadger was of course,
yes, the inverse of clown world, our new book, and we want to give you one.
So, and if you're not given one during this weekend, um, you'll
find it on bitcoininfinitystore.
com.
So,
Thank you very much.
and we need to sign it for you.
Yeah,
Yeah, we'll do that offline.
But Obi, thank you again.
And this has been the Bitcoin Infinity Show.
Thank you for listening.
Thanks.