{ "episodeId": "SLP359", "speakers": { "stephan": { "name": "Stephan Livera", "role": "host", "tag": "STEPHAN" }, "abubakar_nur_khalil": { "name": "Abubakar Nur Khalil", "role": "guest", "tag": "ABUBAKAR" } }, "segments": [ { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "00:09", "start": 8.57, "text": "Hi and welcome to Stephan Livera podcast, a show about Bitcoin and Austrian economics. Today for episode three hundred and fifty nine, my guest is Abubakar Nur Khalil, and he is a board member of the newly started B Trust or Bitcoin Trust started by Jack Dorsey and Jay Z. Also, Abubakar is working on Projects to help build the Bitcoin development ecosystem, such as Qala. So we talk about that in Africa, and we also talk about his work with Recursive Capital and investing in African Bitcoin companies. This show is brought to you by Swan Bitcoin, the easy way to purchase Bitcoin and also learn about Bitcoin. With Swan Bitcoin, there is a specific focus on education and community. So with Swan, Swan makes all kinds of resources available free for customers and even people who aren't customers. So for example, there's Inventing Bitcoin, a great short book that you can get for free, swanbitcoin dot com slash free book. Now, this is a non-technical explainer of Bitcoin, talking about some of the technical ideas in an accessible way. So if you want that, go to swanbitcoin dot com slash free book. Brains are a Bitcoin company through and through, and they are working on some of the most unique and cutting edge projects in the mining industry. They've got Brains OS Plus, this is custom firmware that you can install on your ASIC machine, with the main feature being auto-tuning, which optimizes your miner performance so you get more hash rate for your electricity bill. So if you go to the brains dot com website, you can see which models are supported in terms of Bitcoin Ant miner models, as well as other models coming. Also, with Brains, they operate Slush Pool. This is the oldest Bitcoin mining pool, and they've got all kinds of improvements coming there. And note, if you're using Brians OS Plus and you point your hash rate to Slashpool, you pay zero percent pool fees, so that's a great benefit for you there. Go to the website, that's brains dot com, it's brains with two eyes. Do you need to borrow against your coins? Lend at HodlHodl are making this easy to do in a peer-to-peer way. This is Bitcoin DeFi, it's a Bitcoin-backed lending platform where you can lend or borrow stable" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "02:19", "start": 138.65, "text": "In just thirty seconds, borrow stablecoins without verification. Now, you as users control the collateral together through the whole deal, with all the interest paid at the end. On the other hand, if you've got stablecoins, you can obviously enter into this, you are issuing out an over collateralized loan, but the full interest is guaranteed. Now, with Lendahodlholdl, you borrow on your own terms at your desired interest rates. So go and check out the order book there, the offers there. That website is available at lend dot h o d l h o d l dot com. Onto the show. Abubakar, welcome to the show. Yeah, thanks for" }, { "speaker": "abubakar_nur_khalil", "time": "02:53", "start": 172.69, "text": "having me." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "02:54", "start": 173.92, "text": "So, Abubakar, I saw you, wrote an article in Bitcoin Magazine and also you're, working as part of, you're one of the directors of, Bitcoin Trust. So I thought this would be really, interesting to hear a little bit about your background, what you're doing, and as well as Bitcoin in Africa. So can you tell us a little bit about yourself? And, I know you are a Bitcoin core developer," }, { "speaker": "abubakar_nur_khalil", "time": "03:17", "start": 197.05, "text": "Yeah, sure. So it all started back in like 20, 2013 really, when, you know, I got a video from my older brother, it was a YouTube video trying to explain what Bitcoin was from quite a technical point of view, so trying to explain mining and all that kind of stuff, and I was just 14 at the time, so I didn't really understand anything. And then fast forward to after I graduated from high school, that was 2016, and then 2017, you know, because he works in the Kaduna Investment Part of that was to find out, you know, first of all, what is, what we call Hyperledger, which is, you know, a block, a private blockchain. So that's kind of how the questioning started. It was like, \"Oh, you know, there's blockchains, all that kind of stuff.\" And he asked me, and I was like, \"Oh, you know, no idea as well.\" And I started reading articles. So that was about the time, you know, before, 'cause I was planning to go into college and actually study architecture. So in" }, { "speaker": "abubakar_nur_khalil", "time": "04:17", "start": 256.69, "text": "Kind of in my head, you know, the first time I saw hacking and kind of the privacy side of the world, which I wasn't privy to previous to that. So in 2017, I was still thinking, you know what, reading a lot of these articles that I don't understand about Bitcoin I mean, it makes a lot of sense to just go and learn the fundamentals about, you know, computer science, so that's kind of the route I took. So started teaching myself the fundamentals of the program, what's a computer, computer architecture, that kind of stuff, you know, the basics, and then towards the end of that year, I started understanding a lot of the material, especially when it comes to the technical side of things. So in twenty eighteen, early twenty eighteen was when I really started programming. So I'd already started teaching myself how to code in Python, you know, JavaScript," }, { "speaker": "abubakar_nur_khalil", "time": "04:59", "start": 298.93, "text": "Projects, so I did a pro-programming language in Python, which was called, you know, Rocket. I was trying to test out things and see how it really works and underneath, underneath the hood. Did a mock blockchain, which was, you know, a bit of a rudimentary blockchain at the time. Didn't really have any TxEs or that or anything like that, so that was quite a good learning experience as well. So I did some other side projects like that, you know, sound player, all that kind of stuff. And then towards the beginning of twenty nineteen is when I started reading At least to some extent what mining was and some of these other things. So I started reading up more and more about the protocol and found out that actually this isn't software, it's not just, you know, some magic internet money, there is code running on, on a bunch of computers around the world. So Later that year, in twenty nineteen, around October, so I went on GitHub, you know, hadn't compiled code before anything, was just checking through the good first issues, and then I came across one of them, which was about the GUI to change like the node window name, really. So now the first time, I was like, \"Let me give it a shot.\" So I learned early on that if you wanna- Take on a pull request, you actually have to signify to the public so that people aren't working on it while you're working on it. So you have to like reserve the pull request so to speak. So that's what I did. I was a bit, you know, hesitant 'cause again, that was my first time, so I managed to compile core, you know, the docs are really well written, so compiled core, and then started working on it and then, you know, pushed the changes I had and opened the pull request. I was really, really nice to see that the community was The dev site is completely different, everyone's welcoming there, so I met a lot of developers that helped me out with regards to back and forth, feedback and, you know, reviewing the code. So that's the first time I got introduced into how the review flow kind of works in, in open source when it comes to Bitcoin. And then, you know, did a few back and forths, and then towards the beginning of twenty twenty was when I actually got merged, which was something I had to find out, you know, the, the hard way I guess that Poor request. It doesn't really matter whether it's a minor change or like a really huge change, the time between you push the poor request and when it gets merged really differs. It's kind of a really dynamic process. It dep-dep-- depends on a lot of things. So that was first time I contributed to Core, and then after that, over the years, I started doing a lot more contributions, especially after, twenty twenty-one. When I really continue to, you know, open more proposals, actually reviewing code and all that kind of stuff. So that's what really I've been doing, and in between, you know, I launched Recursive Capital, started Qala with Bernard and the other Bitcoiners, and then, you know, Beat Trust as well. So that's kind of the, a brief history, I guess, of how I came to be." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "07:38", "start": 458.3, "text": "Sure, sure. And one interesting thing I'd love for you to touch on more is you mentioned there's that contrast between, let's say, the Bitcoin Twitter community and the Bitcoin Community, could you explain a little bit about that difference for people who aren't as familiar?" }, { "speaker": "abubakar_nur_khalil", "time": "07:54", "start": 474.4, "text": "Yeah, so on Bitcoin Twitter, whoever has a glimpse of it or is in the space knows that there are quite a lot of notorious toxic accounts and a lot of people like to bag on Bitcoin saying the reason why there isn't a lot of innovation, which is false, in Bitcoin is because of those toxic elements, but- The truth is, when it goes to the, you know, the dev side of things, a lot of that noise is filtered out. All you have is really serious developers that are here to either work on the protocol or help, or help out, you know, with, beginners in terms of teaching them the ropes, answering questions, whether dumb or intelligent questions. So really it's a, it's a really different world completely. Everyone is super open in, on, on GitHub and some of these other dev channels, whether it's IRC or even the weekly, Bitcoin Review Club, It's the best way you can really see how the code is reviewed, get, get a lot of tips from existing developers as well. So really it's two different worlds. I mean, Twitter has a lot of toxic guys, you know, a lot of people who aren't really coding are there, so there's a lot of noise. When it comes to actually people working on the protocol, so yeah, you expect a lot of toxic, toxic maxies there, but even though there are toxic maxies on GitHub and these dev environments, a lot of that is put to the side, it's just strictly focusing on code and making the, making the project better, I guess. So really it's two different things, definitely." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "09:13", "start": 552.68, "text": "And in your article as well, you gave a bit of an overview around what's happening in Bitcoin core development, and one area you mentioned is that there are, let's say Say a little bit under forty full-time developers in terms of Bitcoin core developers and review and maintainers, and then you were saying the number of maintainers is actually in the single digits. So I'm curious, in your view, do, do you think that that is low? Should that be higher? Or do, do you see that as-- That's just the reality of where we're at." }, { "speaker": "abubakar_nur_khalil", "time": "09:43", "start": 582.76, "text": "Yeah, great question. I mean, it's not something that's unique to Bitcoin. I mean, some other open-source products even a lot worse, where you have like a single maintainer working on some very But again, obviously we want more quality developers, I should say, not just developers in general, because again, there are a lot of people that try to contribute to Core from time to time, even as a, as a core contributor, you know, looking at the code and seeing a lot of pull requests just springing up, a lot of the code that's really proposed, you know, from beginners isn't exactly either useful or done well from like a quality assurance perspective. So it's very, it's one of those things where you wanna be careful the kind of developers you're coming, you're, into the product so that you don't bring in individuals that will make huge changes, not maintain the code, which is a huge issue for open source products, and then leaving all the existing developers to manage, you know, grody code. So I definitely think we need more developers, but quality developers definitely as well. We're talking about maintainers all the way to individuals that are a bit outside of the maintainer role, so to speak, but definitely we need a lot more quality dev working on, especially for code reviews. There are a lot of pull requests that a lot of times, and, you know, there are very few people with a lot of expertise to the code base, so it kind of takes a lot of their time and priority is a huge issue for them because they have to prioritize pull requests to be reviewing, so it makes a lot" }, { "speaker": "abubakar_nur_khalil", "time": "11:06", "start": 665.66, "text": "Responsibility, but yeah, you know, it's just the state of things, I guess." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "11:09", "start": 669.29, "text": "And I think it is also made a little bit more difficult by the nature of this very decentralized system in that way that people have to try to learn the codebase and understand where these things can interact. And so also a really interesting book, and you, you might have read it as well, is this one, I think it's called Working in Public by Nadia Egbule, and that was an interesting one because it was talking about how there's this life cycle of contributors and that. It's quite common that there might be some sort of drive-by first-time contributors, but then the number of people who sort of go further down that pathway and actually specialize, take the time to really know and learn it, that's a much smaller number. And I think it comes down to there being the right kind of infrastructure or pipeline, if you will, for new Bitcoin Core contributors and reviewers also, which is quite important because that can end up being the bottleneck, can't it?" }, { "speaker": "abubakar_nur_khalil", "time": "12:00", "start": 720.41, "text": "Yeah, definitely, definitely a good point you make. And that's why you have to be very, very careful I mean, even if we have larger numbers, you're still gonna have fewer and fewer numbers as you go closer, closer to the maintainer roles, definitely, especially people with merge access, which with a project like Bitcoin Core, you don't want just anyone merging code will email you, definitely, there are a lot of implications to even the slightest changes to the code base. So yeah, that's really just one of those things that It's a part of the open source really, open source dynamic, I guess." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "12:27", "start": 747.48, "text": "And so when it comes to this idea of onboarding new developers, now there have been different approaches and ideas shared around this. In some cases, it's like apprenticeship or mentor model, this idea that when you're new, that it might be seen that there's not a defined pathway for you to go, and that's where having a mentor to sort of guide you and show you the ropes or there to be certain, like a program or Of development or, yeah, essentially guidance in that way. Do you see that as the essential thing or how are you seeing it that, people are going to be onboarded in as Bitcoin core contributors?" }, { "speaker": "abubakar_nur_khalil", "time": "13:05", "start": 785.02, "text": "Yeah, definitely. I think it's one of those things where, like I said, it requires quite a lot of specialized skill, especially when it comes to not only the context of the code, the state of the code, why things are the way they are in the codebase, and some of the things that require individuals who have been working a long time on the project to really educate people People who are newbies really in the project, the reasons why certain code changes have been made, certain design choices especially, because you have a lot of people coming and thinking they're improving the code, but not knowing that it's specifically done that way for a reason. There are a lot of unintended, unintended cons-consequences definitely. So I think the best path forward obviously is to have those sort of programs that either mix, you know, mentorship within it or have individuals that are already existing in the, in the ecosystem definitely to help them with the onboarding. So I think mentorship is a great avenue A lot of projects doing that, Chaincode being the primary method of in- onboarding a lot of, you know, new developers. I mean, fortunate to have gone through their seminars, both for Lightning and Bitcoin, which has really helped, especially with learning from individuals that actually coding, especially from, you know, Bitcoin Core as well as LND. And then other projects do as well, like some of Bitcoin, which has done a tremendous job in terms of onboarding new developers, you know, I've had the pleasure of reviewing code from these new developers that come out of the program, which is really Which I'm involved in, and we'll be starting the main program itself this, this April. So I'm really excited with regards to that, 'cause that is taking the step of both providing individuals to get jobs, Bitcoin jobs, definitely, and growing the Bitcoin developer market. Lightning developer base as well, and having them have the opportunity to actually have mentorship going into contributing to open source products as well. So you're gonna see a lot more, you know, projects that take that route of having mentorship and kind of reskilling or skilling developers into coming into the ecosystem. Again, like I said, it's a highly technical thing. You don't wanna just throw a ton of developers to fix a problem, that's not how it's done. So yeah, mentorship plays a huge role definitely, and, you know, shout out to all the Bitcoin developers who Where it is, and those who are taking up mentorship roles, you know, don't attack on some of the other developers. They're doing a huge service to humanity, in my opinion." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "15:15", "start": 914.82, "text": "Could you tell us a little bit about Qala then, the, the structure of it, what does it look like? W- and as you mentioned, it's starting soon, isn't it? So can you just give a bit of an overview there?" }, { "speaker": "abubakar_nur_khalil", "time": "15:24", "start": 924.0, "text": "Yeah, definitely. So Qala is gonna start off with a fixed amount of developers that we're working with. So these are the, the pool specifically we" }, { "speaker": "abubakar_nur_khalil", "time": "15:37", "start": 937.17, "text": "Developers again, because we think a lot of the time shouldn't be spent on teaching them how to code, that should be kind of something that they already have experience with, so that the main focus is just on teaching them about Bitcoin technical aspects, how to work with Bitcoin wallet architecture, all that kind of stuff that they will be required to have a great grasp of if they're going into either jobs or actually working in some of these open source projects. So that's one decision we took when it comes to actually the developers we're seeking. And another thing is we're gonna be looking at, I think," }, { "speaker": "abubakar_nur_khalil", "time": "16:07", "start": 967.19, "text": "Doing is they'll have three months of intensive Bitcoin education, and so already we have done, you know, a few study groups with some of the participants. That's kind of part of the selection process that we had going into this first cohort, 'cause we figured, you know, interviews and, and video interviews and all that kind of stuff to filter them out isn't exactly enough for this type of, program that we're setting up, because it's gonna be hands-on, full-time, and you can't really assess that from a few calls with someone. You really need to put them into the There close to what seems like what the program will be like, so some sort of mock program, I guess, so the study group that we've had so far, we've had like around two, has served that purpose, you know, seeing some of the individuals that came in really strong and then kind of flagged out and dropped out, and that's a good indication that they'll likely not make it through the entire program full time, so that's nothing we've done. So with the main program itself, like I said, it's three months intensive, they'll go on learning a lot of theoretical stuff initially Start up their own projects, cap projects, and then working with some, what you call it, some mentors as well that will be checking in on them and seeing how they're doing, seeing the progress, and as well as all the way to the final step where they'll be working on their portfolios as well, since they'll be having an opportunity to actually get jobs in Bitcoin roles. So we've already been in contact with quite a lot of Bitcoin companies to facilitate that transition between two. Another thing that's quite important is remember we're requesting these developers to give us their full time, and a lot of them" }, { "speaker": "abubakar_nur_khalil", "time": "17:37", "start": 1057.47, "text": "We also provide them stipends on the main pri-the main purpose of doing that is not only do they have to quit their jobs and now request or acquire financial aid, I guess since a lot of them have family members depending on them, it's not just solo devs really from that responsibility perspective. So for us, it makes a lot of sense for us to actually provide them with some financial, financial fluid, I guess, in between the pro-the, the project itself until they get jobs or they move on to open source where they have access to grants as well. So I'm looking forward to see how I have quite a lot of strong developers, you know, the entire cohort is strong from my opinion definitely, so I can't wait for them to be thrown into the wild to do great stuff, I guess." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "18:16", "start": 1095.94, "text": "Yeah, that's an interesting point as well, because especially as you mentioned, this isn't just junior developers, this is mid to senior level developers, and we have to remember that their opportunity cost can be quite high, because they could otherwise be working, just in, not even in the Bitcoin world, they could just be working in a normal software development role, earning a decent amount of coin at that So it is an interesting one, but I think probably for some of them it might be passion, it might be the career, the calling aspect of it. And I think the other point that's interesting to talk about is career pathways for a Bitcoin developer contributor. What are some of the career pathways that exist for them and what can be done on that side?" }, { "speaker": "abubakar_nur_khalil", "time": "19:00", "start": 1139.83, "text": "Yeah, so we're quite fortunate, I guess, in the time we're in right now. I mean, if we're having this conversation five, maybe even ten years ago But I've been a huge, huge dif-difference when it comes to the opportunities they have, especially for open source developers. I mean, a lot of them still do the work, they do pro bono, but we're seeing a lot more projects, even exchanges getting to the, getting to the fore, I guess, with regards to funding developers, which is incredible. I mean, Spiral is also doing a lot of that, you know, Brink, for example. So we're seeing a lot of opportunities for developers that are trying to get into open source, which is, you know, Ecosystem is really open source all the way from, you know, Bitcoin Core, all the way to some of these other product like LND as well. So it makes a lot of sense for them to go that route. And we're at a point, like I said, where there are a lot of avenues for individuals to get funding, whether it's, you know, short term funding or even year, year on grants, which, you know, organizations like bring to, and, you know, the HRF2 has done quite a lot in this regard as well. So that's the route So this is analogous to what you would normally have with regards to regular tech companies, where you just work there, get a salary, all that kind of stuff. Another model, which, you know, we'll see whether it's adopted or not, which is something that companies can be looking at, especially Bitcoin companies, is You know, when they hire these developers, they could give them some time out of the week to actually be working on some of these open source projects. Again, like I said, a lot of it is open sourced and it makes a lot of sense for you to be throwing your great developers, I guess, to actually work on some of these upstream projects like Bitcoin Core to ensure that, you know, the product is stable and all those tools and services you're building on top of it are, benefiting from this robustness and this resiliently built project. So definitely allowing them not only have jobs, let International job market and companies or going the grant route, you could mix the two by giving back to the open source community while still, you know, having these developers get hired. So there are a couple of other, other gigs, I guess, you could run from the freelance perspective for developers, so these are individuals that don't necessarily wanna have a job nor do they wanna commit to a grant. So there are a lot of bug bounties, there are a lot of bounties in the space, which, you know, like I said, this is just for those who don't really want that commitment And Bitcoin Core, a lot of other open source projects where individuals come in and request a change, and then they put a bug bounty or they put a bounty against that change where anyone wants to make it. So yeah, those are some of the opportunities that come to mind. Another one obviously is mentorship roles as well. With more and more of these projects coming and onboarding individuals, you could actually come on board as a mentor as well if you've been an open source, contributor for quite a while, so you can come on as an, as a mentor and get paid to actually do that mentor" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "21:55", "start": 1315.47, "text": "And as you rightly point out there, it's not just at the protocol level, it could also be at an application level. And as you said, even some of the bug bounties or bounties for a feature, as an example, if somebody puts up a bounty because they want some feature in Blue Wallet or Zeus Wallet, and they put up some Sats as the reward for the person who completes it, then that can also be an angle for some people who want to participate in a smaller capacity rather than, I'm working full-time Full time on Bitcoin Core aspect. So there's different ways that can go also. So with Kala then, is the idea that it's like for African developers or it's just a global thing and you're, you're just based in Africa?" }, { "speaker": "abubakar_nur_khalil", "time": "22:37", "start": 1356.99, "text": "Yeah, great question. So Kala is specifically designed for African developers. Again, we see there are a lot of, the talent pool here is quite huge. There's a huge youthful population as well going in, even in, you know, countries like Nigeria, and especially states like Kaduna, which is where I reside, the youthful population is just growing. So it makes sense for us to tap into this existing pool. I mean, we want more quality developers, like I said. So number one, we're decentralizing the developer base, which is great for the resilience of the project and the long-term wellbeing of the project really from that standpoint. And at the same time, we're, like I said, tapping into this existing pool of great developers, so it's a no-brainer for us to locate here. And obviously, I'm Nigerian as well and, and African by that extension, so I'd obviously like to see, you know, similar to all" }, { "speaker": "abubakar_nur_khalil", "time": "23:24", "start": 1403.76, "text": "Geography really, especially from the standpoint of giving them, you know, a seat at the table, a lot of the changes, you know, and the benefits that Bitcoin has really resides or resonates with individuals on this continent, especially when it comes to essential persistence, having an efficient payment rail that actually works twenty-four seven, no need for any banks or inefficient existing, you know, infrastructure financially speaking. So yeah, it makes a lot of sense for us to do it from that regard. So yeah, it's pri-primarily a, an African program one. We've had quite a lot of individuals even outside of Nigeria in the program, especially in the first cohort as well. So yeah, we're looking forward to seeing how these new, this new wave of African devs fare and, and come and help out with the protocol. So that's kind of the vision that we have and the main reason why we went that way." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "24:07", "start": 1447.08, "text": "Yeah. And is the program being run remote or is it actually in person?" }, { "speaker": "abubakar_nur_khalil", "time": "24:11", "start": 1451.14, "text": "Yeah, so it's a mix of the two. You know, initially because of COVID, we had to keep going back and forth with regards to how much we have" }, { "speaker": "abubakar_nur_khalil", "time": "24:21", "start": 1460.91, "text": "The two, with regards to having them clocking, obviously not everyone can come in and, and actually meet physically, but we're making arrangements to make that possible at least, 'cause you want that human connection at the end of the day, you can't replicate a VR webcam or, you know, cameras in general, so yeah, we're making accommodations for having it both ways" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "24:38", "start": 1477.52, "text": "Are there any particular focus areas that you see? So as an example, securing your coins or using your hardware wallet or using Bitcoin privately or the networking aspect of Bitcoin or the protocol layer, like are there any focus areas or is it sort of left to the participant to, a-and the mentors to figure out exactly what are they going to focus on?" }, { "speaker": "abubakar_nur_khalil", "time": "25:00", "start": 1499.54, "text": "Yeah, so it's gonna be quite specialized from the perspective of having some of these developers pick the path that they wanna go down. So when I say pick the path, this is specifically with regards to going either the Bitcoin only route, so you're just working on products in the Bitcoin sphere, not any sort of secondary solution like Lightning, or going the Lightning path. So the main reason for that is again, Lightning is quite a specialized, field from the perspective of you need quite a lot of Bitcoin grounding before you actually understand the material. So it makes a lot of sense for us to align And that pathway to decide from that perspective, and again, we're gonna be having individuals that might want to actually start off their own projects on their own, some others wanna actually just get jobs, some others just wanna work at, work on open source projects and get grants. So we are accommodating and we are specifically designing in a way to tailor this program to each individual's pathway. That way, we don't necessarily throw them at one single pathway and then, you know, have developers that go, \"Uh, I'm not feeling this,\" and all that kind of stuff. So yeah, that's We have a short amount of, a small amount of individuals in each cohort that we'll be doing, so probably ranging from fifteen down below, maybe thirteen, ten, that kind of number." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "26:09", "start": 1568.81, "text": "Yeah. And so is the aim to repeat this on a yearly basis or like have multiple cycles per year? I mean, you said it's three months, so does that mean you're gonna do like three or four cycles per year kind of thing?" }, { "speaker": "abubakar_nur_khalil", "time": "26:19", "start": 1579.02, "text": "Yeah. So initially with this, we're trying to prove out the, the entire structure that we have with regards to getting them all the way from applying all the way to Basis, at least that's, as initially the plan that we have. We'll see how, whether we could juggle having more than one cohort per year, that depends a lot on, you know, how this one goes, obviously to see how we could scale it definitely, but, you know, it's one of those things where you have to try it out, see what works, and then adapt all those things that work and then build out the proper structures that you want to actually scale it through. So yeah, we'll start off with the yearly thing and then we'll see whether we could do" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "26:59", "start": 1619.2, "text": "So bringing it now to B Trust, Bitcoin Trust, which, you were a part of this. So do you wanna just give an overview, what is it and how did this come about?" }, { "speaker": "abubakar_nur_khalil", "time": "27:09", "start": 1628.53, "text": "Yeah, so it's one of those things where, you know, being on Twitter really helps, I guess, because again, the application was open, so I got a DM from my older brother showing me the application, like, \"Yo, dude, just try this out, let's see.\" And then I was like, \"Yeah,\" you know, 'cause all these OGs mentioned in the, in country to Bitcoin and everything, but some of these guys have been around even before I knew what Bitcoin was. So yeah, we did some back and forth, and then managed convinced me like, you know what, even if you do it and you don't get it, it doesn't really matter. At the end of the day, you still took a shot, so you won't be thinking about it in the pot, you know, onwards in the future, saying, \"Oh, I should have done it.\" So I did it, you know, I applied. Initially, it took a while for them to Now we know why, because of the sheer amount of individuals that applied, you know, seven K plus, which is a crazy number. And so yeah, you know, I applied and I was like, \"Huh, I'm sure I didn't get through,\" 'cause it took a while. And then when they responded, I was like, \"Oh, damn, I'm still in.\" So from that point on, even from the point of the initial application, it was really about getting to know the applicants from what I could tell from their side, which is, you know, what have you done Specific about problems you're trying to solve, what are the issues you see? And you know, it's easy to outline issues obviously, so it was really interesting to get questions from them about what are the practical solutions that you see that would be beneficial in terms of if you get, you know, on the board itself, what are you gonna do? I mean, so it was really interesting, I, I learned quite a lot on throughout the process and all the way to getting to the video, what I call the video screens themselves, you know, meeting some of the, some of the team behind What the direction of this project is and kind of having the opportunity to really speak your mind about the solutions they have at hand. So it was really interesting throughout the entire process and part of the process towards the end, I was like, you know, I need to document some of this. Or at least what I have in mind, whether I get it or not, just so I have something really to work towards, because prior to that I was just stuff in my head. So that's kind of how the, the article, the Bitcoin Magazine article came about. It was actually from- All the application process, the entire process I went through with Bittrust, that was kind of how, just like a mind dump really. So yeah, with regards to Bittrust, it's, it's a really important project in my opinion, one that would provide a lot of benefit down the line. We're talking five, ten years. One of those products where, if it's done really right, which it will be, definitely given the caliber of the other team members, you know, individuals like Carla, Obi, and Adrom are definitely great folks. So it'll be one of those products where Africa at least initially, and then gradually grow out into, you know, as we build more capacity into other regions or other, other geographies in the global south like India. So the benefit of having, again, growing this ecosystem in these regions, remember, we have huge developer talent pools in these two geographies, whether you're talking about India or Africa, and for us to tap into that You know, existing talent pool and then have them come and work on Bitcoin is a great service really from that perspective, and one of those things that would have tremendous value going down the line from the perspective of having a more resilient project, a more well-built out project, because now you're looking at quality devs coming into the sphere. So it's one of those things where we're gonna be doing quite a lot of, funding towards growing the space from the perspective of, you know, grant style based funding, another thing is, you know, individuals think we're gonna be venture style funding with equity, The case is and it's a nonprofit to begin with, and the primarily, you know, the primary space we're trying to look at is the open source space again, because that's where all the value we feel is really in the ecosystem, whether we're talking about, you know, payment gateways, even the wallets like mentioned, a lot of them are quite open source and the core infrastructure itself is open source. So, you know, with Bitrus, that's the entire mission really to grow this developer, this developer ecosystem for Bitcoin. So it's, I'm really glad I get to- To be, you know, at the driver's seat, you know, mapping out and seeing how we could actually help out, 'cause from my perspective, this is like providing a service not only to the Bitcoin ecosystem, but to Africa as a whole, because we're, we're actually trying to be building, you know, viable long-term solutions. So we're talking about proper financial freedom finally, not, you know, relying on aid and all these things that are short-term. So yeah, there are a lot of developers currently working in, you know, the Shikoinverse or Shik" }, { "speaker": "abubakar_nur_khalil", "time": "31:39", "start": 1898.74, "text": "to developers to work on long term projects, not just, you know, short term projects to just airdrop and give them these short term returns where you have like shitcoin holders and all that kind of stuff. So yeah, it makes a lot of sense for us, I guess, to go down the route of providing a proper long term solution and having that signal in the sphere for these developers to come in and work on." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "31:58", "start": 1917.62, "text": "Back to the show in a moment. If you're interested to get started with Bitcoin mining, Compos Mining is the world's first and largest online marketplace for Bitcoin mining, hardware, Compass is adding over two hundred and eighty megawatts worth of hosting capacity this year alone, with more to come. So over Compass, you can select a Bitcoin mining ASIC machine, have that shipped to your home if you're in the US and do home mining, or you can use a hosted facility that has been vetted by the Compass team. Now, there are different options there. In some cases, you're selecting a new machine, and in other cases, you're just purchasing a second-hand machine, which might be online faster, and that's through the Compass marketplace. And also with Compass, they newsletter and audio content that you can use to learn about Bitcoin mining, so go and find out more at compassmining dot io today. And if you need to secure your coins using multi-signature, Unchained Capital can help you here. They have what's called collaborative custody. You hold two keys and they hold one key. So as an example, you can buy two hardware wallets and each with their own metal backup, ideally, and Unchained holds that third key and they countersign for you, so you keep your keys distributed and this can give you some additional peace of mind Of mind knowing that you aren't just gonna lose all your coins with one mistake. With multi-signature, you give yourself some margin of error, and so this can help you sleep at night. So go to Unchained dot com, they've got a concierge onboarding program where you can select to have hardware wallets shipped to you, have a call to teach you how to set this up, as well as some ongoing education and support. So Unchained dot com, select the concierge onboarding program, and use the code Livera. And lastly, the Coldcard, which is my favorite This over at CoinKite dot com and they offer a range of products, the Coldcard being the flagship model, and so with this Coldcard, you can use it in all kinds of configurations. You can use it easily with wallets like Specter, Sparrow, Electrum or BlueWallet, and you can use all kinds of different features. It has a secure element, and you are able to use it without even directly plugging it to your computer using a micro SD card to move that information back and forth. So the Coldcard is a really Very versatile device, I definitely recommend you go and check it out to secure your coins and get off the exchanges, learn to self-custody your coins with Coldcard. So that website is coinkite dot com. And now back to the show. So, as Bitcoin Trust is, basically started by Jack Dorsey and Jay Z, and so this, you know, this funding, these bitcoins have been put up as part of, what Bitcoin Trust's, directors can allocate. And so, I guess then the question would be, what kinds of challenges, what do you see as the main challenges for Bitcoin in Africa?" }, { "speaker": "abubakar_nur_khalil", "time": "34:48", "start": 2087.76, "text": "Oof, there's quite a lot. So, I guess primarily the first one I would mention is definitely education. And when I mean education, I mean a lot of people, you know, everyone knows about Bitcoin when you're in the Bitcoin ecosystem, really from that perspective, but if you zoom out and really ask average folks, you know, who are about Bitcoin, most Bitcoin, it's either they've never heard about Bitcoin or those that have have a warped view of Bitcoin, so you know, \"Platinum Killer,\" is, you know, scams, all that kind of stuff, because quite Initially, Bitcoin came in all crazy and hot. So from my perspective, I think we still have a lot to do from that education perspective, you know, average individuals and developers, because again, even the existing base of de- of Bitcoiners on the continent, you know, they still don't have tools and services that really address the day-to-day issues that they're facing in these, in these geographies. So having these developers work on these projects that- Actually fix these local issues that they have would go a long way definitely with regards to increasing the utility that they have on a day-to-day basis for some of these tools and services, and then with education, obviously you don't want to have A lot of quality develop- a lot of quality products and services being built out of them, being wrongly used, for example. So when I say wrongly used, I mean individuals doxing themselves either via, you know, address reuse, for example, so they want to use the, these- Average folks really to understand how to secure their coins because there's quite a lot of responsibility with regards to fully owning your financial freedom. So it helped for us to be able to give them proper onboarding education when it comes to how to secure your coins, how to use Bitcoin correctly, not, you know, address reusing and all that kind of stuff and how to ensure they're not victims of scams, when they're not being told to publish their private keys on random websites, all that kind of stuff. So another thing is definitely regulation and, you know, this is not unique to Africa really specifically. Because again, around the world, a lot of governments are clamping down, and most of it is reactionary, especially in Africa. And I feel it's the job of the stakeholders not to just be, you know, tweeting at some of these government handles saying, \"You know, f you, you don't understand Bitcoin.\" I mean, that's nice and cool, you know, for memes, but at the end of the day, all these regulations really affect average individuals who gain to stand, you know, gain to benefit the most from actual Bitcoin proliferation on the continent. So I feel it's imperative for Regulators and go, okay, relax, this isn't exactly what Bitcoin is, you know, it's not some random shadowy money that's used for terror financing. These are some of the benefits that we have from the individual perspective all the way to the state level, some of the benefits of a lot of proliferation, whether it's, you know, growing the energy grid system using Bitcoin mining, for example, which is something I think is a huge, huge field that we should be exploring, especially in Africa and certain parts that have a lot of renewable resources to tap into. Another thing definitely is Bring them on board. I mean, a lot of this is reactionary and it's fear as a result of ignorance really. So we have to educate them and really bring them on board to have proper Bitcoin friendly regulation. And once we do, you know, we can't stop them requiring KYC and all these things, but at least what we can do is find some common ground so we could bridge between, you know, fully KYCing every single person and checking up all their addresses and, you know, some of these antithetical things and having projects and services that actually still maintain all these private tools and So yeah, it's one of the things where it's a balance. So education and regulation are definitely some of the things that are immediate concerns that I think we need to really address." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "38:17", "start": 2297.27, "text": "And speaking from a Nigeria perspective, at least from my perspective, it seems like the government has gone back and forth, and it seems like, okay, so obviously you're, you, you know more than me, but just let me give how I'm seeing it, and you tell me, you know, your perspective. So how I'm seeing it, at least from the outside and from the news articles and things, I You have Bitcoin as a percentage of the population, it seems the adoption is extremely high there compared to other countries, but at the same time, we've seen the government try to sort of stop Bitcoin, or at least stop some of the regulated exchanges, which has driven more peer-to-peer trading. Am I right or wrong, or what's your perspective from, you know, as a Nigerian?" }, { "speaker": "abubakar_nur_khalil", "time": "38:58", "start": 2338.25, "text": "Yeah, I mean, that's exactly, that reflects the reality on the ground. I mean, they've been going back and forth, both from the perspective of actually trying to, how they see free more Bitcoin is from I mean, the SEC did some work initially early on trying to classify it as like, a security, similar with other jurisdictions, and then now having a lot of other talks with regards to, is this an asset? Is this something that's taxable? All these kind of things. And again, like I said, this is just a-- this is just because they don't have like a proper holistic understanding of what Bitcoin is, what the benefits are, and what the consequences of allowing the proliferation is. And again, this is our job, I feel, to actually reach out to them and explain all these transactionary things that have been happening as a result of this ignorance, I guess. And one of these things, you know, the, the circular that they released, obviously the CBN, which a lot of people interpret it as a ban, which isn't exactly what happened, it's more like, stopping existing financial, services and products to be working directly with Bitcoin. So these are fintech, certain, fintech apps or, you know, apps in general that- Have bank account transfers directly specifying that they're working with Bitcoin. So a, a lot of these services had to flock to P2P, like you mentioned, and like many other countries in Africa, this P2P, a lot of it is happening on WhatsApp, you know, weirdly, and Telegram as well, but WhatsApp primarily. And again, this is just because individuals are trying to circumvent this, you know, restrictive regulation that we have on ground, then. Hence why I'm hammering that we really need to unlock this full, full potential that we have. But again, P2P is a great thing from a resilience perspective, so you still wanna build out that the, the entire infrastructure really from a P2P perspective, so that, again, when these bans happen, if you're a startup or you're working on a wallet, you don't wanna be thrown out of business, which is what happened to quite a lot of individuals at least for the short term before they had to route to P2P. But again, other companies like, you know This coming and have been building out, you know, P2P services as well to help bridge these gaps that we see. And again, we expect a lot of these other apps, product services to follow ins-follow suit just from the perspective of resilience and being cautious. But again, all this is reactionary, you know, we read it and we laugh, but again, it has real world, you know, consequences and is just one of those things where we have to actually put our money where our mouth is, I guess, and really go and reach out to them and educate them on it. Have some common ground. I mean, it's not really that hard, honestly." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "41:28", "start": 2487.76, "text": "In terms of education as well, one thing, and I, I believe you might have touched on this in the article as well, is the translation aspect, is that a lot of the educational material is in English. So can you tell us a little bit about this, like what can be done here in terms of localizing material?" }, { "speaker": "abubakar_nur_khalil", "time": "41:45", "start": 2505.25, "text": "Yeah, so already around Africa and even around the world by like, by token, a lot of people have been doing great work, you know, especially even in Africa, there's some re- Like, you know, Kalkasa, who's doing great, great work with regards to translation, and there's Arabic, I think, who's translating Bitcoin material into Arabic, which, you know, given North Africa is, speaks quite a lot of Arabic, and so targeting that demographic really helps, definitely. But generally with regards to translations, it's one of those things where, you know, for individuals who speak English, may not see the big deal in having this material in other languages, but for those who aren't English speakers, you know, or that's not their native tongue, it Think of it from this perspective, it's like seeing hieroglyphs from their perspective, and then us providing this Rosetta Stone to actually unlock this vast wealth of, of knowledge. I mean, even, even if you're looking throughout history, you know, the Renaissance and everything, a lot of that had only came about because of language translation, you know, from Latin Arabic to some of these other, you know, Latin, for example, and then going all the way to English. So for them, i's, i's one of those things where you wanna unlock this knowledge and provide it to a lot of individuals because again, the benefits of freedom money is one of those things where you want every single person to have the opportunity to know about it, have the opportunity to actually participate in it and actually unlock this self-sovereignty, which a lot of individuals around the world necessarily don't have because of, you know, fiat systems. So I see a lot of benefit And even in, you know, Africa, especially with all the languages that are, that are available in Africa, I think it's very, very important for us to target at least, not every single language, because, you know, that's not exactly practical, but at least the major languages that are missing out outside of English. So we're talking about Arabic, you know, Aramaic, Amharic You know, some of these other languages like, you know, even Hausa, Igbo, for example, in Nigeria and some of these other languages that are spoken like, you know, Swahili as well. So I see a lot of benefit in unlocking this knowledge and providing it to individuals, because again, a lot of the innovations that happen in Bitcoin is from individuals that don't necessarily know about Bitcoin right now. So these are people that will come around five, ten years that will be reshaping how the, the entire development goes and with regards to all the innovative products and services that'll Provide that opportunity beforehand to really tap into that wealth of benefits, definitely." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "44:05", "start": 2645.26, "text": "Yeah. and also from a hardware perspective, obviously people being able to secure their keys, I'm sure, you look, when people start, they're probably just on a phone, right? But over time, it's time to think about hardware wallets and so on. But then that question is the cost, the price point of hardware wallets, like, okay, sure, you can tell them, yeah, get a cold card, but a cold card is like hundred and twenty bucks, right? So what's your thinking there around" }, { "speaker": "abubakar_nur_khalil", "time": "44:30", "start": 2670.46, "text": "Yeah, so it's one of those things where Bitcoin would benefit greatly from a lot more individuals running some of these infrastructure level, infrastructure level, devices, I guess, you know, not necessarily hardware wallets, I'm talking in general, so even running a Raspberry Pi, for example, to actually guard your coins because you don't want to be relying on, you know, SPV style, relying on some of these other wallets that run their own nodes where they can see exactly every single transaction, even though, you know You could still use some sort of client-side filtering, obviously, but again, it's still a lot of benefit for you to actually run your own nodes, and, you know, the cost to actually run a node for Bitcoin compared to other cryptos is definitely really Really though, I mean, raspberry pies aren't really that expensive, but again, still for the average individual around so a lot of parts of Africa, you know, this is still not something that they can afford to do. So I think going forward, even when we're talking about hardware specifically, I think it helps, you know, to have a lot of these other projects that are starting, you know, like Jack, for example, to spire, with, you know, blocks, you know, with the whole hardware like game that they're trying to get into, that will definitely Bring down the price point, which is what you're talking about, and that would allow for these individuals to actually be able to gain access to it. I mean, it's easy, like you said, to tweet out, get out, you know, get a cold card and all these sort of things, but again, it's not practical for a lot of people, so we just have to find ways to ensure that we have a lot of people working in this space. To drive not only innovation, but also drive the price down for individuals to be able to participate into the, in the industry. But another thing obviously is before we get to that stage, there are still ways we could try and provide individuals with practical things to do to secure the coins without necessarily having hardware wallets. So what they're talking about using, I don't know. You know, asymmetric encryption to either encrypt the seed, have it on paper and then store it, or some other, you know, complicated way to do that. Just trying to bridge the UX gap between storing the coins and all, doing all those kind of stuff. I obviously don't recommend individuals use paper wallets or brain wallets, for example, but these are some of the things that we have to provide alternatives to before we get to a stage where a lot of people are working on the hardware space and then driving down the price. So that's, I guess, my perspective with regards to that." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "46:47", "start": 2806.75, "text": "Yeah, sure. I mean, in fairness as well, the efforts are being made around NFC style cards and even, you know, CoinKite are doing things like TapSigner and, some of these, cheaper devices that obviously don't have the same level of security, but, are accessible. So that's an angle or even projects like SeedSigner, that's another example where it's, it can be kind of like a cheaper hardware wallet. So those are a few examples. So when you're looking from a Bitcoin trust perspective, when you're- We're looking at what kinds of projects to fund, what kinds of things are you looking for there?" }, { "speaker": "abubakar_nur_khalil", "time": "47:22", "start": 2842.25, "text": "Yeah, so like I said, initially it's gonna be more grant style to focus on actual developers running in the ecosystem, but again, down the line, that would be, you know, the prerogative of the board and specifically the lead that's hired. So we may see, you know, this is just from my perspective, I'm not talking on behalf of the board, maybe going into some of these open source products that provide this value again, just Providing them with funding and not necessarily requesting equity or anything like that. So that's at least how I see that from that possibility perspective of actually helping out that sort of, that sort of endeavor, I guess, down the line. But this is more, you know, down the lines thing, stuff, you know, like I said, initially we're gonna be focusing primarily on that. But yeah, definitely that would be How I would imagine I would go about" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "48:10", "start": 2890.23, "text": "sure, sure. and let's chat a bit about Recursive Capital. So firstly, what is it?" }, { "speaker": "abubakar_nur_khalil", "time": "48:16", "start": 2896.36, "text": "Yeah, so Recursive is a Bitcoin venture capital fund. So we're seeking out, you know, projects that are in the Bitcoin space in Africa, at least initially, you know, we'll be gradually growing out, you know, maybe five, ten years into other geographies, but our main focus is Africa, definitely, like, you know, like I mentioned for the benefit, for the reason that I've been talking about throughout, you know, that, that's the main reason why we're talking about Africa specifically, we see huge, tremendous potential in this geography, so it makes sense for us to go, you know what, darn, Bitcoin BC really," }, { "speaker": "abubakar_nur_khalil", "time": "48:49", "start": 2929.18, "text": "Actually plug in this, this hole that we're seeing, which is not only from a developer perspective or from a venture's perspective, I mean, there's still a lot of services that we need, a lot of projects working on it, but they don't necessarily have capital and can't be waiting for, you know, foreign investments to come in. Makes sense to pull the existing capital on the geography and then- Actually invest them into these startups. So that's kind of the major goal that we have with regards to recursive in general. And another thing is recursive capital isn't-- we're not trying to look at this as passively investing, you know? So- A lot of our time is spent thinking about ways to actually contribute value to the space outside of just funding companies, hence why we also have, you know, two other arms under Recursive, which is, you know, Recursive Labs as well as Recursive Research. Recursive Research handling a lot of the R&D really from our side, which is looking at the space, analyzing trends, seeing where we could plug in some of this Some of these values, where are some of the problems being faced, some of the solutions that are necessary for us to get to the stage where we want to be at, so looking at companies that are tackling those issues, all of that kind of research, which is done with recursive research, and then with regards to recursive labs, the primary purpose of that arm would be Actually pumping our own ventures even to prove out not only the space, but also to, like I said, practically contribute to the space. So if we see, you know, any sort of deficits with regards to products, we're definitely gonna not wait for startups to emerge, we're gonna actually be pumping out our own as well. So another thing is actually helping companies integrate Bitcoin and Lightning. Now, the main reason for that is we've been talked quite a while with, you know, a lot of companies that aren't necessarily Bitcoin companies from our perspective, but still want to- Benefit from having Bitcoin onboarded onto their services and, some of these things. So from that point of view, you know, instead of actually just providing capital and investing in them, since our focus is Bitcoin, we can't directly do that. We have to, we can through Recursive Labs provide them with this expertise to actually integrate into Bitcoin or Lightning, and that would be in exchange for equity. So that's another angle we're exploring definitely, so that's Recursive Capital, Recursive Research, and Recursive Labs and how, you know, the entire structure is we're currently raising for a one million dollar Or, fund with regards to recursive capital, so we're actively looking for investors to grow out our portfolio and continue to actually help out this space because, you know, currently we have Bitnub on board, so we're looking for a lot more Bitnubs, a lot more apps and services that are helping contribute to this space. So yeah, that's really the vision with regards to recursive, what we're doing." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "51:18", "start": 3078.32, "text": "That's great. And, as I've seen, I'm not really up to date on what's happening with Bitnub, but I have seen Bit" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "51:30", "start": 3089.73, "text": "Support Lightning adoption because that obviously enables this vision of, really fast and cheap payments, and so are you seeing much in the way of Bitcoin commerce take place in Africa in your conversations? Are you seeing, let's say, people paying their suppliers in Bitcoin and that kind of thing?" }, { "speaker": "abubakar_nur_khalil", "time": "51:48", "start": 3107.8, "text": "Yeah, I mean, it's happening in pockets really, it's not happening at mass really compared to other parts of the world where you have merchants directly accessing Bitcoin or accepting Bitcoin, sorry, from that standpoint. But then again- And you know, a lot of people are doing work trying to get, whether it's local, grocery stores to actually accept Bitcoin or trying to get large chains to actually accept Bitcoin now Currently, some of the other ways people are actually paying through Bitcoin is, you know, via gift cards, either buying through Bitrefill, where they go to Spar, for example, Spar in Lagos, where they have these gift cards that they use, which they purchase through Bitcoin. Another thing is, you know, there are companies that allow you to send Bitcoin to an address, and then they make a bank transfer on your behalf. So these are companies like, you know, Coin Profile that a lot of people use, even myself. And another thing is, we have companies like, I think Patricia as well, which give you Bitcoin, debit cards to actually have, so you can be funding that with Bitcoin and actually using it practically on a day-to-day. Another avenue is, you know, PayWithMoon, which is a great company, and that specifically was with regards to having a virtual Visa card that you can actually spend on, you know, online services and even to some extent some of these other, virtual physical services Those things where you wanna have the simplest UX for individuals, because again, that's gonna be the largest convincing argument for them, 'cause if you're coming from our perspective of being Bitcoiners, I mean, a lot of this has to do with, you know, us Juggling around and running through service A, service B, whereas an average person is like, \"Wait, you know, it's not worth it. I might as well just use my existing MasterCard or Visa card.\" So again, we're gonna be seeing a lot more people integrate Bitcoin and Lightning. The reason why I'm more, you know, focused on specifically Lightning is because, like you mentioned, this is, this is not only providing them access to Bitcoin, but providing them access to actually transacting micropayments cheaply, instantly as well, which is unheard of on any other, you know, monetary network, and providing this on both a local level and a global level is really It has a lot of benefits really, if you think about it from not only a revenue perspective, but also from a perspective of commerce in general, day-to-day spending. So we're gonna be seeing a lot more services either integrating Bitcoin and Lightning or providing these normal on-ramp, off-ramps really, whether it's, you know, physical MasterCards, Visa cards, or even getting stores to accept Bitcoin. So there's gonna be larger pushes for that, you know, through companies like Bitnomon, some of these other companies we'll be investing in, but yeah, we're not exactly at that" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "54:17", "start": 3257.44, "text": "Of course, yeah, and, and to be honest, there's few countries in the world that you could do that. so one other area I wanted to ask you is, for years there's been this narrative of bank the, banking the unbanked, right? This idea that, you know, there are people who have been shut out of the financial system for whatever reason, maybe they don't have a, a proper proof of address that they can use to properly KYC and therefore get access to normal banking, like fiat banking, and now Bitcoin is gonna help them. That's been, that's been the narrative, right? Now, in practice, what has happened in some cases is just people who already have really good fiat banking access just get into Bitcoin because they've got the wealth, right? So I'm curious to your, you know, from what you've seen in terms of your discussions, do you see it like a lot of the people getting into Bitcoin already have normal fiat banking access, or is it like genuinely you're seeing people who aren't getting, you know, is Bitcoin actually banking the unbanked?" }, { "speaker": "abubakar_nur_khalil", "time": "55:12", "start": 3312.12, "text": "Yeah, I mean, a lot of parts that is A lot of average individuals either working projects in whether it's small geographies or small rural areas where they're like, okay, let's onboard these individuals to actually use Bitcoin practically, so giving them, whether it's through USDT codes, having some sort of mechanism to actually, since a lot of them have mobile phones, you know, penetration rates are really, really high on this part, having them have these existing technologies they have to actually spend Bitcoin, for example, a lot of projects are doing that, and we're seeing obviously, you know, like you mentioned with regards to individuals that already have money And are already, you know, in the fiat system, it's an easy transition for them, hence why a lot of the people that we see using Bitcoin already have bank accounts, and it's one of those things where a lot of the wallets in existence, not necessarily required to have a bank account, but they do have, you know, They do have mechanisms for you to use your bank account to fund your Bitcoin wallet, for example, to buy the Bitcoin. I mean, for a lot of them, how else would they get their Bitcoin? So we're seeing, because of that sort of integration, we're seeing a lot of people who already have bank accounts Actually getting, you know, onboarding to Bitcoin, but again, there's a lot of push to actually get those who are on board, because again, they're the ones that stand to benefit the most definitely from the perspective of financial freedom, really. And again, all the costs associated with running a bank account or having one, or even some of the requirements like you mentioned, I mean, some of them require you to have, you know, utility bills, which some of these individuals that live in some of these other parts don't necessarily have the adequate paperwork. Some of them aren't" }, { "speaker": "abubakar_nur_khalil", "time": "56:45", "start": 3404.58, "text": "We have Bitcoin, which has no KYC, no requirements, no nothing, no discrimination, no-- there isn't any requirement really other than being able to generate a seed. So from that perspective, we're seeing And we are pushing for a lot of at-pro and banked individuals to get onboarded onto Bitcoin, and the way we're going about this is again tapping its existing infrastructure like USSD codes or even using, you know, feature phones and having apps that work on those feature phones to get them onboarded. Another thing obviously is those that do have smartphones, which, you know, the number has been growing year on year, to actually have some of these apps and services that don't necessarily require a bank account All you have is, you know, access to actually paying, you know, whether you're paying either physically at some sort of spot to actually buy this Bitcoin if you have cash, which a lot of people have cash, whether you're banked or unbanked. So a lot of these avenues definitely we have to tap into to get them viable and easy from a UX perspective as well, on ramp to get into Bitcoin, 'cause I mean, that's the only way we can onboard them. But again, like you mentioned, a lot of the onboarding really is happening through people with existing bank accounts, and those that don't have bank accounts are definitely looking to push that more towards getting them to actually get banked. But yeah, of course, seeing a lot of it improve definitely year in year so." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "57:59", "start": 3478.63, "text": "Yeah, interesting. And also with the Research of Recursive, what kinds of research projects do you see being undertaken there? Is it things like, okay, we've seen smartphone adoption rise, so therefore we can drive this kind of thing, or what kinds of existing infrastructure can we piggyback on, as you said, the USSD codes? What kinds of things are you seeing that could be a research project idea inside the Recursive research umbrella?" }, { "speaker": "abubakar_nur_khalil", "time": "58:26", "start": 3505.51, "text": "Yeah, so it spans quite a lot, especially when it comes to general research we do. So we're not only doing things like- Researching trends, obviously, also looking at drafting up internal reports of existing portfolio companies. Again, the reason for doing that is to check up on our investments and see, you know, how, how are they doing? How's the adoption with regards to the services, the apps that they have? Another thing is ways of improving it, again, because like I said, we're not, we're not trying to be passive investors, so from our perspective, a lot of our work is not only seeking out these ventures, but helping them improve and provide more value to the, to the actual wider ecosystem. So What are they missing out on? What are some of the things that they're doing that isn't necessarily great for the company or individuals are complaining about that you could actually fix up? Another thing, like you mentioned, is when we analyze some of these trends that we're looking at, whether it's increased smartphone penetration or we're looking at, you know, the rise of automated USSD codes, it's definitely to look at it within the Bitcoin context to see, like you mentioned, how can we plug into this infrastructure to actually boost some of this adoption that we're looking to have? Another thing obviously is to look at, even from the perspective of Bitcoin, what are some existing tech that we have from Bitcoin that isn't necessarily being leveraged on, on the ground? So, for example, obviously the, the one that comes to mind immediately is Lightning. I mean, there are individuals around the world that are taking the next step of even having third layer, protocols like, you know, I'm Pervious here as well. So looking at how we can plug into the existing ecosystem really of tech that we have existing Bitcoin as a Tremendous, we spend a lot of our time doing that as well. So like I mentioned, the research time is quite a lot, looking at the space that we're in, how we can improve it, looking at Bitcoin itself, some of the technologies that exist, and how we can actually domesticate them, so to speak, and, and provide this tremendous value for average individuals." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:00:19", "start": 3619.07, "text": "Yeah, that's great to hear. Okay, so I think that's probably a pretty good overview. And yeah, look, thanks, thanks for joining me and sharing, some insights into what's working on, whether that's Qala or Bitcoin Trust or Recursive. Any closing thoughts or things you wanna leave with the listeners, and also where can, people find you online if they wanna get in touch or get involved somehow?" }, { "speaker": "abubakar_nur_khalil", "time": "01:00:44", "start": 3644.24, "text": "Yeah, so I'll start with the last, 'cause it's the easiest. so you could, I think the easiest way definitely is Twitter. So my handle is i hate 1999. And with regards to the parting words, I mean, I just want individuals to, first and foremost, have it in mind that really when it comes to financial freedom, the only option really is Bitcoin, and that may sound like just a maxi talking, but at the end of the day, there's a reason why if you see breaches of either, you know, financial freedom or general" }, { "speaker": "abubakar_nur_khalil", "time": "01:01:17", "start": 3677.36, "text": "Abubakar Nur Khalil, Africa," }, { "speaker": "abubakar_nur_khalil", "time": "01:01:32", "start": 3692.69, "text": "Qala, Trust, Recursive, Capital. Use cases that we've seen, and this is moving into the realm of actual financial freedom, so allowing individuals to not only own the money that they have, but be able to spend it indiscriminately across the world. I mean, no one's gonna be clamping down, no censorship, none of that. And this is the first time in history that we have such a monetary network that's not only accessible, but also decentralized and, you know, devoid of any one state controlling it. So I think if you haven't heard about Bitcoin, get into it, read about it. If you already know about Toxic Maxi's, remember, they don't own Bitcoin, no one owns Bitcoin at the end of the day, so get back into the game, I guess, and really see how you could continue using it, 'cause this is, this is a movement, huh, and it's only gonna get bigger and better over the years. So, yeah, welcome to financial freedom, I guess, and get into Bitcoin." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:02:32", "start": 3752.43, "text": "Fantastic. Well, really enjoyed chatting with you and, thank you again for joining me." }, { "speaker": "abubakar_nur_khalil", "time": "01:02:36", "start": 3756.29, "text": "Yeah, likewise. Thanks for having me." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:02:38", "start": 3758.73, "text": "I hope you enjoyed that walkthrough of Bitcoin in Africa, as well as the development ecosystem in particular, and hopefully you found that educational and informative. The show notes for my show are available at stephanlivera.com/three-five-nine. Thanks for listening, and I will see you in the citadels." } ] }