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What's up everybody? For the week ending April 8th, my name is Marks and this is Freedom Tech Wrap.
Freedom Tech Wrap is a weekly source for news and project updates in the freedom and independent technology space.
We live in a highly connected world. Freedom Tech lets you decide how you want to connect and where you want your data to live.
Freedom Tech Rap is an independent show. If you want to support what we're doing, you can send us value through your podcasting 2.0 app or on Noster.
Your support and feedback are greatly appreciated.
And now on to the news.
First up today, we have a news story from Bull Bitcoin. And it is somewhat sad news, if you will, that they begrudgingly report that they are adding KYC or Know Your Customer protocols into their product.
From the announcement on Twitter, Francis relates to us.
In-person payment options at Canada Post for purchasing Bitcoin through Bull Bitcoin will require identity verification starting April 15th, 2024.
This change has been imposed as a condition for continuing the service at Canada Post.
Identity verification adds friction to the previous seamless user experience offered by Bull Bitcoin.
Despite the inconvenience, Bull Bitcoin remains committed to its mission of establishing a Bitcoin standard using best practices.
And then Francis goes on to say that April 1st probably was not the best day to announce stuff like this.
Unfortunately, this is not an April Fool's joke.
And ends by saying, "We are very grateful for all of you who keep supporting us on our mission to establish a Bitcoin standard using best practices."
Next up, news out of Argentina.
Argentina creates mandatory registry for Bitcoin service providers operating in the country. This is by way of Forbes.
The anarcho-capitalist and libertarian leader Javier Mele took power in Argentina in December of 2023, leading to expectations of increased Bitcoin and cryptocurrency adoption.
However, in late March, the Comisión Nacional de Valores in Argentina announced a new mandatory registry of virtual asset service providers for those operating with cryptoassets in the country.
Companies and individuals involved in activities like buying, selling, sending, receiving, lending, or trading cryptos must complete the registration, affecting both local and foreign providers.
Critics argue that the new requirement does not align with Mele's pro-Bitcoin stance and could benefit only state bureaucrats and compliance industries.
This is a criticism that many people were giving of Mele as people were getting very excited about him prior to election.
Politicians can say one thing and when they get in office, you never guarantee they're going to follow through on that.
I think the jury is still out here with Mele, but this is not a step in a good direction in the name of open and free commerce, especially when it comes to Bitcoin.
So, more to come on that.
Next up, Coinbase partners with LightSpark for Lightning Network integration. This comes from a LightSpark press release.
Coinbase selects LightSpark to integrate the Bitcoin Lightning Network onto its platform.
The partnership aims to provide instant, cost-effective transfers for Coinbase customers.
LightSpark offers a simplified integration process for the Lightning Network, enabling near-real-time, low-cost Bitcoin transactions.
Coinbase will use LightSpark's remote key signing implementation for a scalable, reliable, and optimized node infrastructure.
Casa acquires applied cryptography team, Chamber. This is from a Casa press release.
Casa acquires Chamber, a team specialized in applied cryptography and passkeys, marking Casa's first acquisition.
Chamber previously developed software to enhance the security and usability of private keys across multiple applications.
The acquisition aims to help Casa further reduce friction and improve security when managing private keys.
Both Chamber co-founders, William Allen and Brian Lattin, join Casa as COO and CTO, respectively.
So, congrats on that.
Last news story of the day. Tether awards $100,000 to BTC Pay Server for advancements in Bitcoin payment accessibility.
This is from the Bitcoin Times.
Tether announced $100,000 donation to BTC Pay Server Foundation supporting the FOSS movement.
Tether's CEO, Paolo Arduino, highlights the importance of open-source software in driving technological advancements and accessibility.
The BTC Pay Server Foundation develops open-source payment processing software for accepting Bitcoin and USDT payments on Liquid.
Tether's financial backing is viewed as an endorsement of the Foundation's mission to facilitate global Bitcoin adoption without geographical, political, or financial barriers.
So, congratulations to BTC Pay Server on that award.
I'd like to talk about a couple of events that are coming up.
We have the eCash Hackaday version 2 to take place in Berlin on June 20th to 21st.
There was a Nostr announcement about this.
It says, "Join us for the eCash Hackaday version 2 in Berlin.
This is a small and intimate event for hackers, researchers, and anyone interested in Chamean eCash.
We have participants from GnuTaylor, Fetiment, and Cashew.
There will be talks, discussions, and a lot of code.
Our goal is to bring the dev community closer together, exchange ideas, and work on cool projects during the hackathon.
You can register at eCashHackDay.GitHub.io."
Next event is HRF.
HRF is sponsoring a four-month research fellowship on the future and state of cross-input signature aggregation, or CISA.
This was also announced on Nostr.
HRF announces a CISA research fellowship focused on analyzing cross-input signature aggregation, a potential upgrade for Bitcoin.
The goal is to produce an industry paper addressing various aspects of CISA's potential benefits,
such as improved privacy, cost savings, and compatibility with other technologies like Lightning Network and CoinJoin.
The selected candidates will receive 50 million satoshis, Bitcoin equivalent,
to fund their research and writing efforts over a four-month period.
Applications should be submitted via email to CISAFellowship@hrf.org by May 15, 2024,
including details about the applicant's background, research plans, and initial thoughts on CISA's potential impact on Bitcoin.
For my article section today, I had one that I wanted to highlight, and this was a Stacker news post by Natalia.
It is called "One of the Cheat Codes I've Learned - Geo-Arbitrage."
To kind of sum up the post, it says, "Geo-arbitrage involves moving to locations with significantly lower living costs without sacrificing quality of life.
The concept goes beyond just saving on expenses. It encourages thinking creatively and problem-solving."
"Some examples of geo-arbitrage include leveraging currency differences, tax-free shopping, digital migration, medical treatments, remote hiring, and valuing personal attributes based on scarcity."
"By embracing geo-arbitrage, individuals can enjoy greater financial freedom and explore new opportunities around the globe."
So this is actually a concept that was discussed heavily in the book "The Sovereign Individual."
If you haven't read it, it's a great read. It's very long. I did the audio version of it, and it took a long time to get through as well, even on 2-speed.
But this book was written more than 20 years ago, and many of its predictions on how the world would work are becoming possible today.
A lot of the focus was on this concept of an abstracted citizenship, if you will, where you wouldn't necessarily be tied down just to your nation anymore,
but due to the remote nature of the internet and our community at large, you'd be able to select which parts of your life you want to have in which jurisdiction.
Really interesting idea. I hadn't heard the phrase "geo-arbitrage" used before, but I wanted to share that idea and put that out there.
Okay, let's get to Boosts and Zaps.
We have a few boosts from our last week's episode.
Top booster for this week is the Tone Wrecker with 575 sats, saying "Slingin' Satoshis, appreciate your efforts. Educational."
Next up we have the Wild Hustle with 500 sats, saying "Let's go."
And then Joel W. came in with 333 sats.
And then I actually missed two from Joel W. two episodes ago, so I want to go ahead and read those now. They were both 333 sats as well.
First one says, "File my reaction to Musk's spy satellite swarm under 'Not Surprised.' Most his net worth is courtesy of MIC and other government contracts, so just par for the course."
And then the final boost was referring to the song at the end. That closing song is "Fire Emoji Rock On."
Thank you all for your boosts. Really appreciate it. And if you want to support the show, hit that boost button, stream those sats, go on to Noster, zap the note for this post.
Alright, let's move on to software releases and project updates.
First one is Primal Android version 0.96.10, as well as iOS version 1.4.7.
Features here are smooth onboarding, profile screen facelift, feed rendering improvements, text selection enabled in ThreadView, various fixes and improvements.
Love seeing how Primal continues to put out great stuff.
Then we have Zeus version 0.8.3, on-chain transaction coin control for LND, or Lightning.
On-chain transaction coin control for Lightning Network Daemon, custom pictures for saved nodes and wallets, enhanced neutrino peer controls and ping test, reduced Zeus pay Lightning address fees, Signet support, and improved LNC connection support.
Then we have a couple updates from our friends over at Mutiny Wallet. I actually touched on this first one last week, but I want to touch on it again because it kind of spanned both weeks and it's a really big update.
Mutiny Wallet version 0.6.1, new home screen, Noster profile setup, Federation discovery and recommendations.
Mutiny Wallet 0.6.1 introduces a new home screen design focused on social interactions and easy access to recent profiles.
A Noster-based profile setup walkthrough has been added, allowing users to create or import Noster profiles for direct messaging and transactions within the app.
Federation discovery and recommendations have been integrated, enabling users to find and join suitable Fetimints using an open protocol powered by Noster.
So a lot of people are comparing this to a Venmo-like interface, and that is exactly what they are striving for to make this more of a social payment app.
You put in your Noster username and you can now see your Noster friends on there, and if you want to send someone money you just tap on them and boom, off to the races.
As well as receiving, you can send a payment request to somebody through there.
This makes it a lot easier than the days of trying to send an invoice to somebody and hope that they pay it in time before the invoice expires.
And then fresh on the heels of that release, they put out version 0.6.2, and this is Federated Lightning Address for Mutiny Plus users.
Mutiny Plus is their subscription service where you get additional features on top of the regular Mutiny Wallet.
From the blog it says, "Mutiny Wallet introduces Federated Lightning Addresses for Mutiny Plus users, enabling direct payment transfers between friends without requiring invoices.
Inspired by Cody Lowe's Hermes project, the new feature utilizes eCash tied to a public key, ensuring secure transactions even when offline."
That's really big right there. We'll get back to it.
"The wallet listens for DM messages on Nostr and automatically unlocks tokens upon receipt, maintaining privacy through blinded authentication tokens."
So what this is doing is, if you want to have a Lightning address, like an email address where you have your name and then the @ symbol and then some kind of domain,
with Lightning, if you want to do that, that means that you have to have a server running 24/7, constantly listening for payments to and from that address.
Many people don't want to do that. Many people just want to open up their phone and have their Lightning address there.
That's why Wallet of Satoshi was so popular and spread so quickly, is that they gave you this Lightning address and then they ran the service for you 24/7.
Which also meant it was custodial, and that is why it's no longer available in the United States, unfortunately.
Mutiny decided that they wanted to figure out how to still offer this feature, but do it in a self-sovereign way.
And so they are using the power of Fetimints to do this, and eCash.
So when you set up a Lightning address with them, if you're a Mutiny Plus subscriber, then they give you this address and it is now tied to a Fetimint.
You have to join a Fetimint as well as part of this.
And then when you're offline, you can have your phone turned off, you can have your app in the background or turned off completely,
and a payment comes into your address, it first puts it inside of the Fetimint and you get eCash for that.
And then when you open up your app and it connects, then it sweeps the funds from that Fetimint into your Lightning address.
So it's a very cool idea and concept.
I've got my address. I've been a Mutiny Plus subscriber from the very beginning.
So if you want to test it out, it is marks@mutinyplus.com
And if you feel so inclined to test it, send me some sats from your favorite Lightning wallet to feel the sweet joy of Fetimint Lightning interaction.
So yeah, give it a try.
Okay, moving on from Mutiny.
Liana version 5.0. Major update here. Cold card and experimental taproot support.
This announcement was on GitHub. Liana version 5.0 introduces support for the cold card signing device and experimental taproot functionality.
Users can now try Liana with their cold card using the Edge firmware, promoting testing of Miniscript implementations.
Experimental taproot support is included, although full compatibility with various signing devices remains a work in progress.
And then there are user experience enhancements, which include improved spend transaction creation, automatic labeling of RBF transactions, and better handling of errors during rescan process.
Now, speaking of cold card, we have a firmware update from them. Cold card Q1 firmware version 1.1.0.
This includes address validation through QR scan or NFC for multi-sig or single signature wallets.
The upgrade adds a cover calculation login feature for enhanced security, so it looks like it is a calculator, not just in physical look, but also digitally.
Several bug fixes and performance improvements have been implemented, such as fixing issues related to base64 PSBT decoding and addressing problems with BIP39 passphrases.
Enhanced features include cursor movement wrapping and force setting default hardware options upon restoration of clones or backups.
Ok, back on Fetimints. Fetimint version 0.3.0 improved version compatibility, new features, and fixes.
This is from GitHub post. Fetimint version 0.3.0 introduces improved version compatibility between federation and client software, ensuring seamless updates and maintenance.
This release includes numerous enhancements and additions, such as dynamic meta fields, improved load testing metrics, and added support for paying LN URLs.
Various bug fixes and optimizations have also been implemented, improving overall stability and improvement.
Contributions are welcome. Users can join the Discord group or GitHub for further information.
Unleashed.chat has another update this week, version 0.1.20. Nostr mode improvements.
It says, "Ask 'What's happening on my feed today?' The AI can now access recent posts by people you follow. You need to have Nostr login enabled for this to work.
If you have an existing account, go to the account page, left side menu, and connect your endpub there. You'll see some prompt suggestions when you start a new chat in Nostr mode."
Other updates. AI-generated code blocks now have a button for copying their contents to the clipboard.
Okay. Ronin UI version 2.5.0 has a new troubleshooting page and enhanced Whirlpool UI.
Added a new troubleshooting page featuring options to delete corrupted databases and clear Docker build caches, improved Whirlpool UI functionality including paginations for large UTXO sets,
hiding and showing non-mixable UTXOs, and adding a mix history view for recent mixes.
Enhancements include warnings for high disk usage, conditionally making API calls, encrypted passwords, and additional features such as checking other transactions and resetting the Whirlpool CLI configurations.
Citadel version 0.3.5. Switch between core or NOTs. K-N-O-T-S.
Citadel version 0.3.5. Introduces the ability to switch between Bitcoin Core and Bitcoin NOTs as the primary wallet software.
Includes several bug fixes and application updates.
And then it also celebrates one year anniversary of Nirvadi announcement, promising more news on the project soon.
Next update we have Pay Per Queue. This is a chat GPT-4 pay per query over Lightning service.
Pay Per Queue is a pay per query chatbot that leverages OpenAI's API and Bitcoin to bring premium tier AI to more people around the world.
This leverages OpenAI's API and Bitcoin micropayments.
It offers pay per query chat GPT-4 experience, makes GPT-4 accessible to users without a full subscription or having to link a credit card to the system.
This provides a cost-effective alternative for frequent users.
Last up, we have a LoRa project. Transmitting LoRa packets without radio. This is LOLRA.
It enables data transmission without a Semtech radio using microcontrollers with I2S or SPI interfaces.
Operates with two major modes, transmission using a turntable PLL and direct synthesis on a bitstream.
Uses harmonics and aliasing, advising caution due to potential radio frequency spectrum bands and FCC compliance issues.
Enables data transmission without a Semtech radio using microcontrollers with I2S or SPI interfaces.
So really cool, more things coming out in the LoRa space.
Alright, that is it for the news and project updates this week.
This is Freedom Tech Wrap. If you find this weekly source useful, please share it with your people.
You can also support us through Value for Value in your podcast app or go on Noster and send us some zaps.
I do have that sweet new Lightning address, marks@mutiny.plus.
If you have any feedback for us, send it our way on Noster. Look me up, marks@nosterplebs.com.
To close it out, we have the Song of the Week, where your sats directly support the artist.
So stick around and boost.
For the rest of you, thanks for listening to Freedom Tech Wrap. And remember to live independent.
Later.
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For this song, we are bringing in some electronic synth pop.
This is Benny Jeans with "Dumbfounded."
I got it. Don't worry about it.
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