{ "episodeId": "SLP546", "speakers": { "stephan": { "name": "Stephan Livera", "role": "host", "tag": "STEPHAN" }, "anita_posch": { "name": "Anita Posch", "role": "guest", "tag": "ANITA" } }, "segments": [ { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "00:01", "start": 0.8, "text": "Hi, you're watching Stephan Livera podcast brought to you by Swan Dot Com, a leading Bitcoin only financial services provider. Today we're talking about a Lightning wallet overview with Anita Posch. Anita is a well known Bitcoin educator and she has a focus often on educating people in various circular Bitcoin economies as well as just around the world, especially in parts of the world such as Africa. So for this one, we talk a little bit about some of her recent test- testing that she did on lightning wallets, so you'll get a bit of an overview of some of the different lightning wallets in the space and how they're operating and some of the different models, as well as some of her insights from the recent Adopting Bitcoin Cape Town, South Africa conference. So I hope you'll enjoy this episode with Anita." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "00:58", "start": 57.94, "text": "Anita, welcome back to the show." }, { "speaker": "anita_posch", "time": "01:01", "start": 60.56, "text": "Hi, Stephan. Thank you very much for the invitation. I'm happy to be here again." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:05", "start": 65.28, "text": "Yeah, that's great. And I know there's lots of things going on. We're gonna obviously hear about what's going on on the ground, and I know you were just recently at Adopting Bitcoin Cape Town in South Africa. So, let's start with a few of your reactions on that. What was the event like for you?" }, { "speaker": "anita_posch", "time": "01:23", "start": 82.59, "text": "Oh, I was very happy to be at the first Bitcoin only conference in Cape Town, and a lot of the people there also said it's so great to finally, after a lot of blockchain crypto conferences in South Africa, that they can finally attend and be a part of the conference, and they were also very proud to say that it's really a conference from Bitcoiners for Bitcoiners. And, so it's the second, Bitcoin only conference now on the- The African continent after AfroBitcoin in Ghana. And it was, you know, we're at many conferences, I would say it was, one of the smaller ones, but very well organized. And what I specifically loved was, the diversity of people there. And also there was a big, big focus on earning and spending Bitcoin and replacing, and less, more, less, less, focus on, hodling and Bitcoin as a store of value and as investment, of course, we all know that's also a, a, a big part of Bitcoin. But the focus at that conference was more very practice orientated, and I loved that." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "02:36", "start": 156.26, "text": "Great. So while we're on that, let's, let's hear from you. I, I wanna hear your perspective on that. So why is earning and spending Bitcoin important?" }, { "speaker": "anita_posch", "time": "02:45", "start": 165.15, "text": "Because it's a part of money. It's a function of money. And if we want to prove in a way or show that Bitcoin is money Then we gotta use it anyway. It would be a great way, and it's also a way to onboard a lot of people, who may otherwise say, \"I don't have any money anyhow to, to use it as an investment or a long term, possibility to store my value,\" because there are millions and, even billions of people who don't have that possibility to save. And so for them, it is and can be a tool tool, to, get free from restrictions on the amount of money you are able to send in and out, the fees you, have to pay sometimes. Or like speaking of Zimbabwe, many, many people don't even have the possibility to send money in and out of the country, and Bitcoin gives them a tool to do that. And in other, because I've also been to Bitcoin, Bitcoin Witsand, the last two days, and it's also- Also like it gives also merchants and shop owners, the possibility to make more profits because it attracts bitcoiners. They come to, their small towns and villages and spend money there which they otherwise might not have had. And so I think for- I think adoption is two sided or I guess more, more sided than two sides, but it's a store of value and it's a money for me and a tool." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "04:24", "start": 263.83, "text": "Right, and that's, and that's fair enough, I think, from the perspective of maybe people like us who are willing to earn and spend. I also acknowledge that there's a whole camp of people out there, maybe more from, more so from the Western world, where for them, they just see it like, \"I'm just gonna hold on my Bitcoin and I've already got fiat income and I'm just gonna spend that.\" That fiat income. And so, you know, I think i-it's more just a question of right tool for the job, and because for some of those, like let's say Western Bitcoiners who have access to US dollar bank account and credit cards, debit cards, et cetera, they see it like, \"Oh, it's just inefficient for me to use Bitcoin because maybe capital gains tax, maybe because of Bitcoin transaction fees that are...\" Not built into the current, you know, credit card and debit card rails that they are using today, right? Like I'm not endorsing that view, I'm just saying that's, that's what many people are facing, right? so I think that's probably just the-- that's why maybe there's a slight difference in this kind of worldview where there are some Bitcoiners, typically from the Western countries, and more of an investment case and savings and long-term hodling, and then you've got sort of- the, let's say on the ground in lower socioeconomic circumstances, people who are maybe more focused on the earning and spending and the direct, you know, transactional nature." }, { "speaker": "anita_posch", "time": "05:45", "start": 345.21, "text": "That's, that's one part, but it's also the ne- the ne- necessity. So Bitcoin really fulfills needs, it's a utility here, and that's why I think that more people will be adopting it from the side of being a payment, like a money- To pay things and to earn it, then in Western countries, as you say, yeah, a lot of people, why should I use, Bitcoin, which is complicated? I need to learn about it, and, I can just use my credit card. Yeah, I get that. and that's one of the reasons why I'm working in the global south and not in Austria, because people are staring at me and saying, \"What do you want?\" Yeah. but it's even there more, there are more use cases popping up there too, From a Austrian, comedian, whose bank account, was suddenly closed, he seems to have said something that people didn't like, and he's using Bitcoin now to get his, crowd fundings and, and, his things going. So it's coming everywhere, you know? And, but I really think that the necessity driven part here and the utility that Bitcoin has for, for people is the main driver of adoption In, in many African countries." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "07:05", "start": 425.05, "text": "Right. And let's, talk a little bit about the-- obviously you're on the ground, right? And you were obviously seeing talks from or seeing people talk about things like, I know, there's the, I, I forgot his name, is it Karel, the guy who does, the Cryptoconverted, and they're the guys who are doing pick and pay, so people in South Africa, this is a big, you know, shopping super-- supermarket place, and people can actually pay with Lightning So could you just el-elaborate a little bit on that and what's the experience been like for that kind of thing?" }, { "speaker": "anita_posch", "time": "07:38", "start": 458.35, "text": "Absolutely. I mean, it's mind-blowing for me. It's, I should actually come to South Africa and live here, because, I was at PikenPay and with Carl, Carl van Wyk is his name, he was one of the co-founders of Luno, which is a big exchange in, in, South Africa and other African countries. but now he's working with his own company Company and he built a app which is basically a translation app, because PicPay, they came to him and, asked him how is it possible to integrate, Bitcoin payments to our system, because what they are using is al-already a lot of people here are scanning QR codes at the tills at PicPay to pay for their, purchases, b-but it's A unified QR. So many different systems from the traditional banking world are already using this unified QR. And of course, it was easier for Carrel to, adopt that standard so that not- PicnPay had to start issuing Lightning invoices, but they-- he built the app which is translating this crypto, QR or let's say it's a payment QR by PicnPay, a unified QR to a Lightning invoice. And how it works? A lot of people go there and want to pay with the Lightning wallet directly, but it doesn't work because it's not a Lightning invoice. So what you first need is this, app which is called Crypto QR, and then, you, when you set it up, you're guided through the whole, setup because it also makes a short test payment for you, and then you can choose which Lightning wallet you want to connect with it so that it opens automatically. So basically the process is, you go to the till, you say \"scan to pay,\" then the cashiers know what that means because we- With Bitcoin and Lightning, they don't even know that they are accepting that. And, so they show you the QR code, you open the Crypto QR, you scan it, with the Crypto QR, and this app opens immediately your Lightning wallet, and then you just say pay, and it's done. And I paid for my grocery shopping there, and it was done in like one second or two. And I was like myself, I was like, \"Wow! \" And, the Pick'n'Pay is a, the second largest retailer in whole of Africa. So maybe there is even the possibility to go to other countries as well. At the moment, it's, possible in any retail store, in any Pick'n'Pay in South Africa to pay with Lightning, which of course is a great, way to, foster adoption when we are thinking about Bitcoin eCash. And Bitcoin with and and other, hopefully other, circular economies that are popping up in South Africa. So I, I felt it was a great, experience and, Also, he showed us his data, like the, the, transaction volume. He started it last year, I believe, and it's like, yeah, going up, you know, like he says it's still small, so it's not a lot of transactions, but the numbers are growing. So hopefully more people are using it, yeah. And also Carol has this, focus on earning and spending Bitcoin because he also speaks about the restrictions that people here are facing and how complicated banking is. And for instance, the banking fees in South Africa are higher than in Germany, so maybe that's also a reason why you wanna use Bitcoin and not, banking." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "11:41", "start": 700.86, "text": "Yeah, okay, yeah. So if it's just a genuine fee saving, then, yeah, of course. so are there any other, I guess, any other themes that you wanna highlight that came out of adopting Bitcoin, Cape Town?" }, { "speaker": "anita_posch", "time": "11:54", "start": 713.79, "text": "Oh, there was also a lot of discussion and, knowledge sharing about, circular economies, of course. The learnings from Bitcoin Ecosi, for instance. Then there was, Edwin from Bitcoin Witcent with Nicky, his partner, they are basically the driving people behind, the Bitcoin Witcent project. I met others from others, other countries as well. We, Bitcoin for Fairness has a branch now in Zambia, and we were able- able to bring, one guy over from Zambia to South Africa because he is also going to be a teacher for a new project in Victoria Falls. It's called Bitcoin Vic Falls, which is very interesting because Vic Falls is, yes, at the Victoria Falls, on the border to, from Zambia to Zimbabwe, and a lot of tourists are coming, to Victoria Falls, so I think this could be- See a chance to have a circular economy there with, similarly in a way to Bitcoin Beach where people come in, and wanna spend Bitcoin? And he's going to teach their Bitcoin so that they have their own teachers then, because I think that's the, the important fact also about, new projects popping up, that we have people on the ground, with the knowledge. So, circular e- economies and also how to, share Bitcoin knowledge with your peers was also a topic, at least in the panel and the talks where I was a part." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "13:36", "start": 816.12, "text": "Yeah, sure. and you mentioned, Bitcoin Wet Sand as well, so tell us a little bit about this circular economy, what's the status there, like, well, how many merchants and how many sort of people are part of that one?" }, { "speaker": "anita_posch", "time": "13:48", "start": 828.18, "text": "Yeah. So Bitcoin Witshend is half the way to Bitcoin EKasi from Cape Town, and it's to-- it's totally different in that sense that you have a totally different population there. In Bitcoin EKasi, it's a project in a, in a township, where really, people are like, let's say, having the least, you know, chances of all. And Bitcoin Witshend is a Afrikaner's community It's like four hundred people living there, I believe, and, it's a tourism village in a way, because a lot of the houses there are empty, they are owned by people who come there on the weekends or for the holiday season, and, they onboarded, I, I can't tell you really how many shops, but I would say ten maybe, and, Yesterday, I was-- we were in a liquor store, so I was paying for beer and wine with Lightning, and it's like they have signs that say Bitcoin preferred, and it's not even a, a special topic, you know? Like it's, the cashier in there, he wasn't very impressed that I bought my things with, with Bitcoin. the only surprise was like we-- then we went into the next store, which is more like a grocery store, and we bought- Bought something with Lightning, yeah, easy, everything. And then I thought, \"Oh, I got the Bitcoin ring on me. I wanna buy something with the ring.\" So I went back and I bought, three lemons, with the ring. And the cashier was like, \"What's that? Where do you have that from? I want it too, you know?\" And so it was really-- she was really totally surprised how is that possible now. and they have a put put place, so they have some tourist attractions where you can pay with Bitcoin, you can buy biltong, with lightning in the next, village. So they are spreading it a little bit out already. And as far as I understand, they also have the, got a grant or donations now to replicate that model in a village nearby. So then you might see, more Bitcoiners. And also, what, what interesting was, was, that Edwin said to me, \"You know, I can give you the tourist experience, but actually the more interesting thing is that these people, and it's, rather say...\" The, more on the older side, the society there is more on the older side, and Edwin says they are the youngest people, they are the youngest grown-ups there. And, so he told me, you know, the people actually exchange Privately, in the sense of, okay, you wanna buy my fridge, pay me in Bitcoin. So, I find that also very interesting. So it, it seems to really become a, a Bitcoiner community there, where they also exchange goods, butter basically, with Bitcoin, which I also find great." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "17:10", "start": 1030.02, "text": "Great. And so let's talk a little bit about, the tooling and the wallets, right? And, and I don't know, this is also-- you've written, and recently done, I guess, some field research of, with different wallets. Let's start with, the question around fees for a lot of people, because I think that's, you know, it's, it's kind of funny because in the online world, there's all the people, you know, well, I prefer to call them spammers, but, The really pollutive examples, and so we've seen these big fee spikes recently, and I guess the way I'm seeing it is we always knew this was going to happen eventually, right? It's just sort of a question of is it happening a bit prematurely now, or maybe it's like a bit kind of, lumpy in the way it's happening because like every now and again there'll be a big new mint and all of a sudden the fees are high, and then that makes it difficult for people to actually self-custody. And I, I know you're obviously very focused We've seen is a lot of people who then, because the fees are high, they end up going to a custodial solution. so do you want-- do you have any initial reactions to that, and how are you dealing with that on the ground?" }, { "speaker": "anita_posch", "time": "18:23", "start": 1102.78, "text": "Yeah, it's, ordinals and inscriptions made the life, of course, much more difficult, the life of an educator, of a self-custodial focused educator. And I said it on, in my keynote at Adopting Bitcoin, I said I would never have thought that I will say that one day, but start with a custodial wallet, you know? It's, it's really- Not possible in any other way at the moment to onboard people who can't afford fees, that high fees. And I'm, I'm myself, I don't wanna pay forty dollar fees for a fifty dollar, transaction. So, yeah, to be like-- To be honest, I mean, I am pretty much annoyed by all these ordinals and stamps and whatever because, I mean, I have the focus on bringing Bitcoin to people who need it the most, who can profit the most from- From its, technology and all the possibilities you get, and also of course from the upside we have over the long run to, make the wealth inequalities, less, yeah? and then, the Western guys come in and say, \"Ah, we're having fun now on, on chain, and I don't care if it's fifty dollars, and I don't care about the people who can't afford it.\" For me, this is something which annoys me very much, and as you see, I'm getting emotional. But on the other hand, Bitcoin is a technology that's neutral, and if you can use it for that use case, then you can use it for that use case, you know? I'm definitely not gonna want to, censor, or, or where do you start and where do you end in this fire, also as I understand, it's technically not really possible, to, to, like- Like make them go away because they will find other ways to do other things and we're at the same point again. And so I think it's, as you said, it's a earlier version of something where we would have gone to any house. And, in a way, I think it's good because, for myself, I can only tell you that I learned more about liquid now and about eCash and about other possibilities to scale, and I have also- So have to say, yeah, I changed my mind. there are some sorts of shades of self-custody, I guess, in the future. Not everyone, will be able to own a on-chain UTXO. That's how it is, and everyone knew it actually. and I also knew it, but I, I never really thought about it, you know? Like, what will be the effect or, or, or prepared for it? I was also just like sending five dollars to people on chain, and now after, reflecting on it, I'm just like, \"Oh, I, I made a mistake there, you know?\" so now I'm changing it and I'm, telling people if you can't afford to, let's say Say, earn or buy one thousand US dollars immediately, then don't go on chain or maybe five hundred, yeah? because I believe that's the size of a UTXO that will be like the fees will not be higher than that pretty soon, at least I hope so. So, yeah, I started educating myself and also sharing knowledge about other scaling opportunities and opportunities for people to have some sort of self-custody, but I think We gotta start with those who, have the least, with earning Satoshi's through gaming, podcasting, value for value, being septic on Nosta and things like that. Yeah, and then from there, of course, there are possibilities to bring them into, shared self custody, federated custody, which are By far, still much better than a bank account, or traditional banking, yeah." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "22:33", "start": 1352.84, "text": "Back to the show in a moment. This show is brought to you by Mempool dot space, the leading Bitcoin and blockchain visualizer. With Mempool dot space, you can visualize the upcoming blocks for the Bitcoin blockchain, and you can target your fee based on the fee rates that they put up there. 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So there's newsletters, there is Swan Signal Live, there is all kinds of material that is free for you to learn about Bitcoin, whether you're buying Bitcoin with Swan or not. So for example, Jan Pritzkir's book, Inventing Bitcoin, is there. It's swan dot com slash free book. And also, the team recently created Welcome to Bitcoin. This is a great one-stop shop, maybe not for yourself if you're already a listener of this show, but this is a great resource for you to give to new people who need a one-hour just clean intro over at swan dot com slash welcome. So if you wanna sign up, go to swan dot com or you-- or send your friends to swan dot com slash welcome. And now back to the show. Yeah. And I think that's, that's the realistic pathway that it's going to have to go. so w-w-let's, let's now Talk a little bit about the review that you recently did of some of the different Lightning wallets. So, as I understand, you, you did a similar thing, was it like one year ago or about then? and now this is like an updated version?" }, { "speaker": "anita_posch", "time": "26:39", "start": 1599.08, "text": "Absolutely, exactly. So last year, I think the only two self-custody Lightning wallets that were available, were Breeze and, Phoenix. Self-custody in that sense, I mean, if you don't run a node yourself at home. So in that sense that You have a note on your phone, so anyone can easily have a note, yeah. and then back then I realized, okay, with pre-its, not possible to sync in that, environment with the slow internet, and Phoenix was clearly the winner because everything worked. So this year, I thought, I'm doing it again, especially because there are more, self-custodial Lightning wallets now, and I wanted to try if anything has changed, if there is a new, kid on the block basically, which is doing, the Lightning payments in a, in a great, reliable manner. And also, I, I was interested in the fees, yeah? Because, if you have to open a channel from on-chain, then you might run Run into the same problem because people can't afford forty dollars to open a fifty dollar, channel. So, I thought I'd do it again. This time I used, Blixt Green, Mutiny, Phoenix and Zeus. And for the fun of it, I added Wallet of Satoshi. I didn't add Breeze the second time because I was talking with Roy and he said, \"Yes, we changed some things, we updated the wallet, made it better, but I don't think that it will work,\" so I just left it out of the test. And for me, what's most-- what was interesting is also to see, the- The different setups of the wallets in terms of what, how can you open a channel and what can you do then? I mean, is it a, is it more for noobs? Is it, easy to use wallet that guides you or does it have more options for advanced users and things like that? And so, the first thing I had to do, of course, was to open a channel, and for that I stayed in the capital of, Zimbabwe, Harare, because I thought I might not even be able to open a channel, with, slow internet, and so I did that first And I also was interested in the difference of, possibilities and the costs of opening a channel, because as you know, you can open a channel directly from the blockchain, you can open it from another non-custodial or custodial Lightning wallet, and, you can even use Liquid and swap it into Lightning via BOLTs Exchange and, then open a channel. So you basically also- Open it from Lightning, but, you can take it from Liquid. So, and that was very interesting because, for instance, with Blixt, I only could use a on-chain transaction. I mean, there's the possibility to buy inbound liquidity, and I think also, to get an o-channel opened, but I didn't want to do that, because it-- I think it's another step again, you know? I, I'm looking for the solutions for people, who don't- Don't know that much about Bitcoin, to onboard them and, and that's also a fact why I do these tests is I only wanna recommend things that I've used and where I know it wor- they work and where I can honestly say I did it myself. And so, what was very interesting with the channel openings was that, as I said, Blix needed two on-chain transactions, which was different with, with other wallets. I have the, I had the, not feeling. I, I, I thought the others are somehow hiding away that second, channel, the second transaction." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "30:52", "start": 1851.85, "text": "could it just be in that case? Is that something? Like a just-in-time channel going on, something like that, where maybe Blixt had to be funded on-chain and then you had to set up a channel inside of Blixt, whereas in maybe the others, they're doing like an on-the-fly channel creation, which does require maybe a little bit more trust on the LSP side and maybe there's some more technical complexity there, but, that's perhaps what's going on there." }, { "speaker": "anita_posch", "time": "31:18", "start": 1877.96, "text": "Yes, I assume that's exactly what's happening there because with Phoenix, my channel was set up in five minutes or something, and with Blix, I couldn't set it up. I mean, I-- it took me a whole day because they-- that was at the time where, transaction fees were fairly high and the times, it tooks, it took you know, I went home in between because it was already night. So, interesting was that actually green was the best option in terms of, like how much I had to pay and, how much, outbound, possibilities I had. So I used for every channel, I used a hundred thousand satoshis. So I started the channel with a hundred thousand for each of the wallets. And, in green I had ninety-seven thousand five hundred satz in my channel outbound, so to be able to pay from that. and so that means I only paid three point five percent of the one hundred thousand satoshis as a fee to open the channel, whereas with Zeus, so how, how do you say Zeus? Choice. The wallet. I want to" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "32:36", "start": 1955.65, "text": "say Zeus, yeah." }, { "speaker": "anita_posch", "time": "32:37", "start": 1956.81, "text": "Zeus, okay, thank you, because some people stare at me when I say it. and I had to pay forty-eight percent, For the channel opening. Yeah, I guess a lot of" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "32:48", "start": 1968.34, "text": "this probably, it probably really depends like on a range of factors like how much priority di- was, was it assigned with, how mu- a-and how much did you fund it with, right? Like if the intent is, you know, people might say, \"Look, if you're self-custodying, and we should try to ke- we should, as a- Rule of thumb, maybe you should have what UTXO is larger than one million sats, right? So if one Bitcoin today is about what, forty-three thousand, so that means one million sats is what, four hundred and thirty dollars, let's say roughly. So one hundred thousand sats is like forty-three dollars in today's terms. So maybe, you know, you could understand where maybe, a listener or maybe the wallet developers would say, \"Ah, no, Anita, that's kind of a user error here. Like, you should have done it for a bigger amount," }, { "speaker": "anita_posch", "time": "33:33", "start": 2012.95, "text": "you They can't say that, but, I, let's assume I'm a newbie. I mean, yeah, you can tell them use a million sat, but who, who knows that? So, it was just interesting to see. And, for Zeus and for Green, I, for both, I used Liquid, with the SideSwap wallet, swapped it via Bolt into a Lightning invoice, and, paid the one hundred thousand that way. So, Like the costs for the incoming- So, so just to clarify, that's," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "34:06", "start": 2045.93, "text": "that's an example where you were, the wallet starting from zero and you had another wallet with a liquid balance, and then you pay, like, you used Boltz to kind of fund or be the initial creation of that channel. Now, some of these, Lightning wallets have it automatically built in, and other cases, I guess, you can just go separately to Boltz dot, exchange and sort of, you know, sort of- Yeah." }, { "speaker": "anita_posch", "time": "34:30", "start": 2069.85, "text": "No, these ones, that's separately. So I had the That open, I sent from the Sideswap wallet two bolts and bolts. I put in the Lightning invoice from the wallet that I wanted to open my channel" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "34:44", "start": 2083.68, "text": "that you were testing. Gotcha." }, { "speaker": "anita_posch", "time": "34:46", "start": 2085.58, "text": "Yeah, exactly. I put that invoice into bolts. So it was kind of like a Lightning" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "34:48", "start": 2088.26, "text": "setup basically, is what you were testing, like, like a onboarding from Lightning straight away kind of thing. Like the idea in this example, let's say, yeah, you're pretending that the newbie in this case just has the wallet and then the experienced person or the teacher already has a Lightning wallet set up. And that they're funding it that way to get them started." }, { "speaker": "anita_posch", "time": "35:07", "start": 2106.87, "text": "Yeah. I just wanted to see the different ways also you can have a lightning invoice paid, you know? And, interesting is like for Blix, I paid one hundred and sixteenth, sixteen thousand satoshis in total for this one transaction to open the channel." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "35:23", "start": 2122.81, "text": "Okay." }, { "speaker": "anita_posch", "time": "35:24", "start": 2123.79, "text": "Yeah. With, Mutiny, I paid a hundred thousand four hundred four. And with Green and Zeus, of course, I paid the same because it's, liquid to both. It was one hundred one thousand satoshis. So that's-- these differences are just so small, but I think it makes a difference in the setup of the channel, the, the amount of satoshis that you then have available and also how much you can receive. Okay, so, that was the setting up of the channels, and then I was, happy to go out forty kilometers from Harare to a rural area, and I was looking for a place, because I had three devices, you know, for the se-the wallets, because some I already had on one phone and, yeah, etcetera. So I found a place, where I could use one of the two mobile providers I was- Using because on one place one way worked, on the other place the other worked, so I then decided I just, hotspot myself. So and then I started, I had set up a protocol like I want to send fifty thousand first, and I wanna receive fifty thousand. And I always use the Phoenix wallet as the wallet to, to receive, or send from to the test wallets, so that, that is always the same. And so, I was successful, sending fifty thousand to Phoenix from Phoenix, sorry, yes, from Phoenix and from Mutiny And of course, from Wallet of Satoshi. But the interesting thing is that Wallet of Satoshi took nine seconds, to send the fifty thousand, whereas Phoenix only took three seconds. So the self-custodial-" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "37:20", "start": 2239.82, "text": "Phoenix to Phoenix or which one? Oh, that's, I mean, you can understand why that, because that's like kind of like an internal, not fully internal, but at least async kind of on their side can make the connection more easily because they know it's, it's another Phoenix wallet" }, { "speaker": "anita_posch", "time": "37:35", "start": 2254.52, "text": "Yeah, that's right. I guess yes. And then mutiny, it took fifty, fifty-five zero seconds, but it also worked, but I had to wait a little bit longer. And then I did the other way around, I say, okay, let's receive thirty K from my external Phoenix wallet that's not in the test, and it was, Mutiny Phoenix and wallet of Satoshi all did it in three seconds. So they all worked fine. Blixed, Green and Zeus, they just didn't work. And I know why Blix didn't work because it just didn't sink to the top of the blockchain, so it was never there. Green, I don't know what happened with Green. I waited two and a half minutes, for a payment to work, but it didn't, and I got an error message. I sent it to them, I don't know What it meant. And Zeus also, I waited five minutes, it wasn't able to sync or, to, be ready for the payments. Yeah. I mean, the, the Zeus guys- Yeah, so I think," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "38:40", "start": 2319.99, "text": "some of this comes down to like the model that the wallet is using. So as an ex-- as you mentioned with Blixt and I believe Breeze, in the, let's say the old model Breeze or the original model of Breeze, it is using Neutrino, so it needs to sync to the chain, it needs to And it needs to then download the blocks that, that it has a relevant transaction in. And so that is just going to be difficult if you're in a rural area in Africa with poor internet connectivity, and so that's where I think depending on which wallet type and what infrastructure it's using, it could be very different, right? So Phoenix, as I understand, is using more like an Electrum server lookup model as opposed to download, going and trying to download the Neutrino filters, so you can sort of understand why that would be Really fa- much faster." }, { "speaker": "anita_posch", "time": "39:29", "start": 2368.81, "text": "Yeah. I don't know exactly how Mutiny does it, but I was also very happy with Mutiny. It worked also very well. and then the next test I did was sending to a Lightning address. I don't know why, I couldn't explain technically, but I thought maybe it's a different, experience, maybe there's something different involved in it. And so I sent from the wallet, to my wallet of Satoshi, Lightning address. And- Right. it took me two minutes, that mutiny, did it. I mean, it, it sent it, it was successful, but it take, took two minutes. And then interestingly enough, Green worked. It was able to send, twenty thousand to my Lightning address. It took forty seconds, but it worked. And Phoenix again, in three seconds, it was done. So, that worked, worked fine, and of course, Pricex and Zeus still didn't work," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "40:27", "start": 2426.59, "text": "yeah? Yeah. that's unfortunate with them. But yeah, I think, I mean, it's, it's polling the, you know, like that web server and saying, \"Hey, give me an invoice,\" and then trying to pay that invoice. So it's probably not that, that different really, but i-in terms of practical, you know, use, people might be more accustomed to working with lightning addresses, in the future as opposed- compared to copy-pasting invoices, so we'll see if that, you know, changes things. So then, I guess, like overall kind of results-wise, like from reading your post, it sounded like Phoenix pretty much came out the best. And I guess wallet of Satoshi, because obviously it's custodial and there's kind of less, no, I, I" }, { "speaker": "anita_posch", "time": "41:10", "start": 2469.85, "text": "didn't include, I didn't include wallet of Satoshi in my results as it's a self-custody wallet test, right, because it's" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "41:16", "start": 2476.48, "text": "custodial, and so" }, { "speaker": "anita_posch", "time": "41:17", "start": 2477.44, "text": "for me, yeah, exactly, for me the two winners were Phoenix and Mutiny in that test. And also from the perspective of, from the perspective of, how easy it is and usability for, people you wanna onboard I think that Mutiny does a great job and Phoenix as well. so that was also a reason for me. I mean, I was very, disappointed to be honest, because Mutiny says they are in experimental phase, like they are development, and everything worked quite well. Green also says it's experimental, and I actually had to get a special code to, open the lightning account in the Green wallet. And I was especially excited about Green because you can use it with Bitcoin on chain, you can use it with Liquid, and you can use it with Lightning. And I also assume for many people in African countries who use, a lot of them use, stable coins like USDT, you could, you could use, LUSTT in Green. And I like the fact that you only have One seed for all the different accounts. So, I was a little bit disappointed that the payments didn't work, and but I, I assume and I hope that, as soon that they are working on it and that it will be better next year. so, yeah, I'd go for Phoenix and Mutiny. And but I also have to add, it's very specific also, like which channels are open and things like that, because yesterday when we were in Bitcoin with Sand, I had two times trouble in paying with Phoenix. And whereas Peter Todd, who, who was also with me, he had no problem because he seemed to have other channels open, on his own node And so I then reimbursed him with, show me an eCash in the Fedi, Fedi wallet, which was also great. Right." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "43:25", "start": 2604.81, "text": "Okay. So, so in Peter's case, did-- was he using Phoenix as well, or you mean he had like a separate, like Zeus setup with his own?" }, { "speaker": "anita_posch", "time": "43:33", "start": 2612.98, "text": "He has his own, note and he used Swiss for it, yes. And he said, I think that the setup in, like the merchant notes I think that, Edwin doesn't have a channel to Async, but I think they opened one yesterday, so it should be better now." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "43:53", "start": 2632.57, "text": "I see. Yeah, yeah. Okay. So, yeah, that's, interesting thing as well, because sometimes like, big nodes need to set up some more connectivity between each other, and then after that, sort of, the payments can flow more easily. but, I think, look, I think the other broader comment that people might have, or I might have on this is we have to think about who- Our audience is going forward, right? Because if, okay, inscriptions or not, auditors or not, fees are going to rise and it's gonna become impractical For people below a certain, let's say, income or net worth threshold to be using self-custodial lightning, and that's gonna ma-mean that It's sort of like, who are you really targeting now with self-custodial Lightning but small values? It's like maybe that's not really the right use, like maybe the only use would be for people who, who can't afford to be self-custodial, right? And it's not, reality that we like, but maybe that's just-- that's, that's realistically, you know, that's just being pragmatic about what, what, what we do going forward." }, { "speaker": "anita_posch", "time": "44:58", "start": 2697.75, "text": "Yeah, I think we need to be pragmatic about it. I mean, self-custody above all, of But I also want many, many million more people to use Bitcoin. And I mean, we know that we can't scale the blockchain in that sense that everyone can have, full self custody. So I hope for solutions in the future that, we have several, s- levels of self custody. And yes, there might be like, like, eCash, for instance, I think is also, I mean, it's fully custodial But if you have a federation, for instance, where you trust all the guardians that are involved, that are maintaining the mint, and then I think it's fine. It's a little like, like this Uncle Jim, setup, you know, where a lot of people might also have, a family member or trusted friends who run their nodes for them, where you share the node or in future maybe share UTXOs, and things like that. So yes, I think- I think we need to be pragmatic if we want, Bitcoin adoption, and that's also the, the case why I, for instance, now, say to people, if you want to start, then start with a little Satoshi or Alby, until you have maybe an amount of a hundred thousand satoshis or two hundred thousand satoshis in that custodial wallet, but be aware it's custodial, and as soon as you have that, either you- You open a self-custodial Lightning wallet, or you move it into liquid, or if you can't afford the fees and you know about, the fact that in future you will need to do UTXO management and things like that, then you can also go on-chain, yeah? But, it's, it, it, it's definitely didn't, doesn't, hasn't made my life as an educator easier, but I try to, to, I think the most important thing if you want to onboard other people is also So to see their situation, what are their goals, what are their possibilities, and what are their needs, and then specifically look for a solution for them, what, what might be the easiest and also the, the most economical and most secure at the same time. So, so what is it, what's the optimum, you know?" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "47:27", "start": 2846.53, "text": "Yeah. So one other question just around, Blink. Have you played around much with Blink? I know that's another custodial one that's sort of also becoming popular Popular as an onboarding custodial lightning app." }, { "speaker": "anita_posch", "time": "47:40", "start": 2860.14, "text": "I have to be honest with you, I haven't used Blink. I have never tried it because, of the custodial effect and also, you know, it's just also a time, problem that I have. But I wanna use it because, for instance, I, I need to be able to talk about it, of course, and, and experience it myself, because also a lot of people are using it in Bitcoin with Sand, for instance. So I'm sure and, and it seems to be very easy. Because as per my" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "48:08", "start": 2888.09, "text": "understanding, Blink does have some good merchant features as well. So yes, it's custodial, but there are some aspects where maybe if you're a merchant and, you know, in the, again, the lower socioeconomic status merchant who can't afford to go on chain, well, maybe it makes sense for them, as a, you know, practical matter that, okay, yeah, you're gonna have to start custodial. We wish everyone could be self-custodial, but that's not the Think about is trying to onboard people, but without scaring them off, and also being clear to them about the actual trade-offs of what they are going into, right? Because if they aren't going into self-custodial, you know, context, into a self-custodial, into like a fully self-custodial context, and they are, as an example, another example might be Aqua, right? So Aqua is more like a liquid, it's more like a liquid-based wallet, if you will, like your, your main balance. I mean, you can have Bitcoin on-chain. You can also have a liquid BTC balance, and then the wallet can do the swaps, like they've coded in the background to have like all these swaps going, so you can have stablecoin swaps and lightning swaps, and I believe they're using BOLTs dot exchange for that. But that's another example where it's another trust model now, because if that user-- obviously you and I understand what that trust model is, but how do you-- how do we skillfully convey that? To a new person and say, \"Oh, actually, when you've got this balance in liquid, it's actually kind of like a fancy multi-sig bank with twelve or fifteen federation that they're the ones who can, like, potentially rug you or not, or they're, they're the one who can block your peg out, let's say, or your swap out.\" and so, y-y-you know, but at the same time, that is a way to have lower fees. But with a slightly different trust model, you're not trusting just one exchange, you're now trusting this kind of twelve or fifteen, so you can sort of argue that, okay, it's not as bad, and maybe you could have lower fees that way, and you can have stablecoin access that way. So how, how are you sort of-- And then, okay, as an another example, you've got like, let's say Fedi, which is again federated mint, it can potentially give that user a very slick user access, user experience. So how are you sort of thinking about Seeing these things when we're out there, you know, trying to teach people." }, { "speaker": "anita_posch", "time": "50:30", "start": 3030.27, "text": "Yeah, that's a complicated thing, of course, because even if you have a group of ten people, in one community, they might have different needs, different possibilities. There are people who can afford fees, others can't. They have different goals and things like that, so it's very complicated to be honest with you. And so, like also with Aqua, of course, Aqua is great because you have the stablecoin option you also have the possibility to use Lightning. Of course, it's not Lightning, as you said, it's liquid swap in, swap out. but the, that's the next thing that you need to tell people in a way is, you, with Lightning, it's only ever going to be hot storage. You can't have a cold storage, you can't use, a Trezor or a Coldcard or a Bitbox or whatever hardware wallet, to secure, your Lightning funds. But you can do that with Liquid, because Liquid is similar to, the Bitcoin blockchain, yeah? It's federated. So to be honest, that's why I rather do not onboard people like going there and telling them, \"Hey, why don't you use Bitcoin? Install Wallet of Satoshi, and I'm off again, sending them five satoshis, because they will never use it. They don't know the risks associated, they don't know what it is, whatever.\" So that's why I always try to do at least a twenty minute, intro, you know, where I can, tell people about the most important things, so they, that they are aware of and maybe cautious and, or that what self custody actually means, ownership with the twelve words. So I think For me personally, in my education, for me it's very important also to tell people, and whenever you run into proble-problems, you can contact me. you find me there and there. and, with my educational programs online, I now also have the possibility, which I was missing the last years, to tell on aspiring educators and community builders, come on, you can, have a scholarship for my course. And then you can be one year in my program at least, and then you can always ask questions, and you can always get in the newest information about wallets. I mean, just like the thing that happened with BlueWallet, for instance, last year with their custodial Lightning accounts, that they basically, I don't know how many months did we have, one or two, and they said, \"Um, we're deprecating it.\" And I onboarded a lot of people to that. I mean, I know you can still, get out the, the Satoshi's from there, but I can't reach most of the people. So that's why I also say it's so important to have a local community, a meetup or a group of people where you can go if you have questions, because we will need to change, I mean Just thinking of me, I don't know how many Bitcoin and Lightning wallets I have on my devices, ten, fifteen, I have no idea. and I'm changing them all the time, you know? now Aqua is coming to it, Blink, others like PLV, I'm not using PLV anymore, so I also tell people, you might need to change the wallet in the coming years because this is a new and upcoming technology, there's a lot of development going on. So, but on the- So your question of what do I recommend then? it's really very depending on the use cases, on the knowledge of the people, or let's say on their, level of education Because you, I think you have, have to abstract it, make it the, the more easy, the more you see, okay, also this person isn't really interested in learning, they don't have the capacity to it for different reasons. Like in Zimbabwe, people don't have so much time to learn about self-custody and what it all means. They have so many trouble with their own daily life, so It's really important to," }, { "speaker": "anita_posch", "time": "54:54", "start": 3293.67, "text": "look into who is the audience for this event, for that, tutorial, whatever. I think, that's the most important thing to, to Specifically focus on their needs, and challenges and where you can bring a easy solution." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "55:13", "start": 3312.75, "text": "Right. Yeah. And I, I think it's, it's quite complicated because as you were saying, it's also a factor of some of these wallets might not be here in a few years. So then you kind of are also, from that perspective, also trying to protect that person. But it's just genuinely not an easy sort of, thing if you're dealing in the case of people who are, you know, not able to afford going on-chain, right? Because if that person can afford to sort of use full self-custody, then it's a bit more simple, you can sort of put them to like one of the, you know, write down twelve words, keep these twelve words safe, as long as the twelve words are safe, you're okay. but it's kind of a, a different story with, some of the custodial lightning." }, { "speaker": "anita_posch", "time": "55:53", "start": 3353.1, "text": "We, yeah, we also have the twelve words with the self-custodial lightning, but still for me, I mean, yeah, it's still more complicated than as you say on-chain. There are more standards already on-chain, you know, with the twelve words, the HD, wallets. Sorry, now I lost, I, I wanted to say add something, but please go on." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "56:14", "start": 3374.5, "text": "Yeah, right, yeah. But I mean, as w- even with the twelve words thing, I think that's relatively standardized now. I think most people have this BIP thirty-nine context down. The only difference is maybe like Moon Wallet, whereas, you know, that was kind of a popular wallet a few years ago before the on-chain fees had sort of risen a lot. I think the other thing is a lot of people didn't understand that it was not nat-- Lightning native, it was more like an To do Lightning, and in a high fee scenario, that it kind of breaks down a bit if you're doing a lot of smaller transactions. so that's where maybe the native Lightning, but again, it comes back to, you know, choosing the right tool for the job. Go on." }, { "speaker": "anita_posch", "time": "56:52", "start": 3412.42, "text": "Yeah, but that was one of the reasons. I mean, at the beginning, I also recommended Moon because I thought it's a Lightning wallet. and then when I saw their backup, which they had a non-standard backup, you know, with, with different letters, the, that's not the I don't like that setup because, it will be difficult to explain how to move from, Moon to something else with that. That's not a seed, you know? so that was why I didn't, I stopped recommending it. And what I wanted to add before because of the wallets, and also I think it's so important even more now when we have that incident when Wallet of Satoshi shut down for the US American users. I mean, if you are not on Twitter, every- Every day like we are, how do you know that wallet of Satoshi if you don't use it on a regular basis? Yeah, you use it once, and six months later you see, oh, they aren't operating here anymore. Yeah, maybe you see it, maybe you don't. so of course you can send the Satoshi somewhere else, but I think that's a big problem that we have, that, education has, or Bitcoin in general, that it moves so fast and there are- There's many different wallets, and you also don't know who are actually these people who make these wallets. I mean, what's their knowledge, you know? That's why I also put into the, about security and safety and usability, because that's why I also put into the test like how many seed words do they have, is the, backup forced? So do you need to write down the twelve words before you even can start using the wallet, which I think is a good practice, because a lot of people start- Start using it and they never write down their seed afterwards. or there are wallets that allow you to copy the twelve words into your clipboard. I mean, I know exactly what's happening next. People are sending it via email, they're putting it into their messenger on their, computers, and then the money is gone. And then the argument comes, \"Yeah, but it's only Lightning, it should only be a little bit.\" \"Yeah, but for a few people, that's everything they have, you know?\" so I, I think it's also important to have this- Standards in the wallets, and I, I'm a-advocating for that, and, yeah." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "59:18", "start": 3558.06, "text": "Yeah, but I think the trade-off with that though is there will be some companies who say, \"No, but that in-- that, that's like a, another hurdle to adoption. That's a hurdle to getting people to use the thing, because now they won't, they won't, they just wanna be able to play around with the wallet.\" And y-y-you know, you can understand all the kind of arguments that will go back and forth there. And even on In the US or at least stopping US customers, part of that is also driven by regulation, right? And so it may be that, and again, I'm not speaking of what I want to happen, I'm speaking of what I think, you know, might happen is It may be that non-KYC custodial wallets in the US go away because of regulation, but maybe in the non-US context, they may still survive, and that, that, you know, that's where maybe the Blinks and the wallet of Satoshi's and some of these others, like maybe Fedi and others, will still be able to play because they're not in the US and they're not serving US customers, at least on that, whereas it may be that- That, you know, in the, in this age of government regulation, that the custodial wallets will end up being KYC ones, and so that's kind of the other element to add in." }, { "speaker": "anita_posch", "time": "01:00:35", "start": 3635.32, "text": "I feel the same, and I gotta say, well done wallet of Satoshi, not bending the knee to that, and rather go out of the US than, making it, KYC'd. and I think with, Fedimint, the chances are higher, that it can still be, non-KYC because the federations usually don't know who the guardians are. So it's a technology that allows for that shared custody without people even- Knowing who is behind of it, you know? So from that perspective, I hope because, I mean, we need privacy tools, of course, that, that, things like that can sustain. But yeah, we'll see." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:01:19", "start": 3679.43, "text": "Yeah. But yeah, I think this, recent, you know, last year or so, we've seen these big fee spikes, and it's-- the other aspect is it's not Constant, right? It's not just saying the fees are two dollars every time, or the fees are forty dollars every time. There have been times where it, where it swings between anywhere from, let's say, a dollar to thirty dollars a transaction on chain, that is. and so I think that is maybe going to force a different conversation for those of us who are kind of in the education world of trying to help put out educational material, because it means you, you really have to know, you have to sort of choose the right tool for the job You sort of have to understand the person you're trying to teach, what is their use? Are they a hodler mainly? Are they not gonna transact that much? Okay, are they above a certain value? Okay, go for this particular wallet 'cause it's on chain, you get your twelve words, and don't worry about lightning, you don't really need that. Or if they are somebody who maybe they can't afford to be, you know, above one million satoshis, and they kinda have to use- You know, spending, receiving, and they do transact more regularly, well then maybe that's where like a Blink or a Wallet of Satoshi or a Fedi, something or an Aqua potentially might make more sense for that person, you know? But it really-- and then they might be like, \"Oh no, I'm a privacy person, so I, I really want the privacy aspect,\" you know? It's, it's just you really have to sort of understand what they want and then try to sort of have good knowledge of the options and then say, \"Okay, for you, this is the" }, { "speaker": "anita_posch", "time": "01:02:49", "start": 3769.64, "text": "Absolutely, I totally agree with you. So it's going to be very specific, towards the needs and, and the possibilities of your group, your audience, yeah? What people need. yeah. So that's, it's, it's-- Yeah. I think we see, we will see more speciali-specialization, also in education." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:03:13", "start": 3793.2, "text": "Yeah, right. so let's wrap up then. So as you, as you've mentioned, you know, we've talked about a lot of things, this episode. We talked about adopting Bitcoin, Cape Town, South Africa, some of the ramifications of, you know, a swinging fee market or block space market, the, some of the different, your review of the self-custodial Lightning apps and, you know, kind of a discussion of where things are going in the future. just as we finish off, where can people find you Course and Bitcoin for fairness, where can people find you online?" }, { "speaker": "anita_posch", "time": "01:03:46", "start": 3826.0, "text": "Yeah, so, the course is crackyorange dot com and, it's a video course where you learn everything you need to know about Bitcoin, why is it important, the history, what are the differences between self-custody, custodial services, which wallets to use, how to set it up, what are the best security practices and things like that, and it includes a live call once a month where people can ask me Any questions directly. And so the best thing to stay in touch with me is actually my newsletter, because once a week I send out a free new, yeah, a newsletter for free with important, updates and new videos and educational material, and you can find that at anita dot link slash weekly. So that's the best way to stay in contact." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:04:36", "start": 3876.53, "text": "Great, okay, well, thanks. I'll put all the links in the show notes and, thanks for joining me." }, { "speaker": "anita_posch", "time": "01:04:41", "start": 3881.24, "text": "Thank you very much, Stefan. Have a nice day." } ] }