{ "episodeId": "SLP626", "speakers": { "stephan": { "name": "Stephan Livera", "role": "host", "tag": "STEPHAN" }, "btc_sessions_k3tan": { "name": "BTC Sessions & K3tan", "role": "guest", "tag": "BTC" }, "guest_2": { "name": "Guest 2", "role": "guest", "tag": "GUEST" } }, "segments": [ { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "00:00", "start": 0.1, "text": "The bull market is probably not the best time to be looking at what's going on and trying to overhaul your setup. I think emotions fly a lot when prices are going up, and you get scared, and you, you may do something without all things considered properly. So you should be doing it, in my opinion, in the bear market when bit-- no one gives a shit about your Bitcoin or Bitcoin in general." }, { "speaker": "btc_sessions_k3tan", "time": "00:23", "start": 22.92, "text": "If you're on an exchange during a bull run, then yes, you should be actively learning self-custody. Right now, even though it's, it's a bull run, like that's, that's priority 'cause we all saw what happened last bull run. Inevitably, there's, there's blowups. So I think that's one of the exceptions where it's like, okay, you're, you're gonna start learning, but you're gonna be slow and methodical. You're not just suddenly moving vast amounts of money around. You're, you're slow and intentional with what you're doing." }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "01:04", "start": 63.66, "text": "Hi everyone, welcome back to Stephan Livera podcast brought to you by Bold, the place where you can buy Bitcoin. This is for American listeners over at getbold.io. Now today we're gonna be talking a bit about Bitcoin hardware, Bitcoin software, Bitcoin wallets, nodes, how to be a merchant from some of the, the practitioners, some of the guys who are teaching you You about how to do this stuff. So welcome back to the show, BTC Sessions and K3tan." }, { "speaker": "btc_sessions_k3tan", "time": "01:27", "start": 87.44, "text": "Thanks for having me." }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "01:28", "start": 88.32, "text": "Thank you. Alright, guys, so let's just start with a bit of an overall comment. I mean, there's been a lot of development, a lot of advancement. Here we are, January 2025. Do you have any overall comment on where things are today in terms of Bitcoin software and, and hardware nowadays?" }, { "speaker": "btc_sessions_k3tan", "time": "01:45", "start": 104.75, "text": "K3tan, you take it, and then I'll follow up." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:47", "start": 107.41, "text": "Look, I think things continue to improve. we've got more hardware coming out, and we've also got more software being developed in the form of like things like FrostSnap and, and that sort of stuff. And so, yeah, I'm really excited to see where this builds out, but I think, yeah, for me personally, I, I tend to wait and see approach, and I get, ho-- it, it matures a little bit more, and then I will con-continue to look at my own" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "02:15", "start": 134.53, "text": "I'm very late with my adoptions, in fact for me, I, yeah, exactly. So I don't go into the cutting edge straight away. I might do so for testing purposes, for Bitcoin that isn't, you know, like it's just a small amount. But yeah, I, I take things pretty slow and methodical, and I wait for, you know, a few years, in fact, before I'll jump into something and go, \"Yeah, I think that's a good solution for me.\" But yes, I'm glad that, you know, more options and hardware" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "02:45", "start": 164.61, "text": "Which is great, which is healthy." }, { "speaker": "btc_sessions_k3tan", "time": "02:46", "start": 166.43, "text": "Yeah, Ben? Yeah. I'd, I'd echo the sentiment. My approach is different in that I just like dive headlong into whatever new stuff comes out, and oftentimes that results in like finding the early bugs and all of the broken stuff, that comes with the territory, I suppose. But yeah, you're absolutely right, the amount of stuff-- I, I think the thing that strikes me the most is when I started doing Bitcoin tutorials in twenty- 2016, the most common question I got asked is, \"Are you gonna run out of stuff to do?\" And the exact opposite has transpired. There are so many tools, so many options available for people when it comes to software, to hardware, to multisig, all, all of these different things. and, and there's a lot of options. Some are very, very obviously new and i-new ideas being fleshed out, others are, are pretty hardened. But I'm, I'm just bullish as hell on the fact that there's- So much going on and the market is figuring it out over time. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's never been a better time to be a Bitcoiner when it comes to choices, and, and the ability to pick the tool that best suits your needs." }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "03:59", "start": 239.46, "text": "Right, and it's good to have lots of options, and I think both of you are reflecting some of those in the tutorials and the content and the products that you guys are putting out there. So, yeah, I thought this would be a good episode for people who maybe, maybe they've only got Bitcoin in an ETF or maybe If I've only got Bitcoin on an exchange and they, they're not sure what's the best way to actually get off the exchange or, you know, actually hold some Bitcoin for myself. So let's start with wallets, and we'll start with software wallets to be clear. So let's get recommendations from you guys. Let's start on, you know, what is like a noob wallet, like somebody's first wallet? What would you recommend? And then what is a wallet that you like using? So, K3tan, do you wanna start? Yeah, so for" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "04:41", "start": 281.05, "text": "me, I reckon Is Sparrow Wallet. I think it's just, it's one of those wallets that I think is one of the best that's available on the market. I think it's easy to use. Some people disagree with me, I, I, I think it's, it's fantastic. I get, I like the UI of it, and it's probably the one that I would recommend. and in fact, it's one of the ones that I, I, I put out as a tutorial guide on Twitter, and, it went well, it was well received, and" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "05:15", "start": 314.55, "text": "Four words or my twelve words, and, I'm off to the races, and then, you know, I can just start, withdrawing, but for smaller amounts, obviously. So I put some, you know, I guess, caveats in there, in that thread, and I think that's probably the wallet that I would recommend for most people to, to start to- Right. So even," }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "05:32", "start": 332.28, "text": "even hypothetical grandma, you'd put, you'd put grandma onto Sparrow Wallet. well, look, grandma," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "05:38", "start": 338.02, "text": "with grandma, I'm actually custodding my" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "05:45", "start": 345.13, "text": "And that's exactly what, like, yeah, that's just kind of how it works. But, yeah, I, I maybe something on a mobile phone, maybe something like a Phoenix or something like that, or maybe even Wallet of Satoshi as a starting point, but that is fully custodial. Do you really own that Bitcoin? Answer's no. So, yeah, you gotta pick your poison here. And I don't know if Grandma's ready for Samurai Wallet or, you know, Ashigaru. So" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "06:08", "start": 367.88, "text": "fair enough, fair enough. Ben, what are you-- What would you--" }, { "speaker": "btc_sessions_k3tan", "time": "06:16", "start": 375.57, "text": "Okay, so, I'm gonna throw a few things out here. Number one, actually, I would, when, when somebody's starting to custody decent amounts of on-chain Bitcoin, I do believe that Sparrow is achievable for somebody that's capable of, you know, downloading apps, using a basic computer, like, it, it is attainable, but there needs to be guidance there. And so one of the things I often say, if I'm working one-on-one with people, I'm like, \"Alright, when in doubt, press the blue button.\" that, that, they try to highlight it to guide you through the process. I also say things like, \"There's a lot of bells and whistles on this. It's an awesome tool, but when you start, just Things that you need to know, how do you receive, how do you send, where's your balance. If you can, if you can kind of put your blinders on for the initial foray into Sparrow, then you can start looking around and asking questions, huh, what's this? Maybe I'll go and learn about that this time. And it's a great learning tool. The, the, the, the learning tool itself is actually using the wallet. So I think Sparrow is fantastic for on-chain. When it comes to mobile and like brand newbie for smaller amounts I've actually found this answer increasingly difficult because there's trade-offs with everything, and so a lot of people, I think their first interaction with Bitcoin is gonna be some way of executing a Lightning transaction in the coming years. Like, I think that's gonna be the average person's, like, \"Oh, I got a few bucks.\" And so, yeah, like, do you push them towards something that's a custodial thing, but you can send them two dollars? Or do you say, like, \"Here's, here's Phoenix, it's, it's full self-custody.\" But like you're gonna get hit with fees every time your channel's growing. And so where I've kind of settled right now, and this is ever changing, is it depends on the person's level. If I think that they're capable of getting, you know, Phoenix and saying like, \"Okay, you need a channel, here's what your channel looks like,\" and it's kind of like you've got a bucket that you can fill, and if you filled a bucket, you need a bigger bucket. So if you're mostly receiving, then you're-- This is how you're gonna have to think" }, { "speaker": "btc_sessions_k3tan", "time": "08:31", "start": 510.51, "text": "trouble with that concept, but they wanna accept lightning transactions. I'm okay with the trade-off of Aqua using, u-which is natively Liquid, but it's swapping lightning to Liquid in the background. It's, you know, there's nuance there, but it's not true you, you don't own the Bitcoin, you- You own Liquid Bitcoin, which is part of a big federated multisig. It's much less likely to be rugged than a single entity that can rugged you, I think. And then the last shoutout that I'll give, because I love these hybrid wallets where they're using different mechanisms to ease the onboarding process, I wanna give a shoutout to Blitz Wallet, 'cause they're doing something very interesting. And what they're doing is, if you're just messing around with a few hundred sats, they start you with Cashu, like eCash. When you get beyond a certain threshold, it auto-swaps into liquid, so less counterparty risk or it's at least distributed, and then when you reach another threshold, it will swap all of that into your own lightning channel. And so depending on your level of usage, it actually gives you a path towards more self-sovereignty as you're dealing with more Sats. So I think that's maybe the future of where things will lead over time with default mobile wallets, at least I hope, where there's a pathway, whereas if you, if you plunk into Wallet of Satoshi, it's like, if you want more self-sovereignty, you're switching wallets. So that's my general thoughts there." }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "09:56", "start": 595.7, "text": "Yeah, interesting. And I mean, it's a great point you make about Sort of trying to find the right balance, like for me, yeah, personally, my typical favorites are Sparrow Wallet if it's a desktop thing or Phoenix if I'm, you know, using Lightning and things like that. But lately, I have been playing around with Aqua just to sort of understand how the trade-offs of it work, and it is interesting because you don't-- that user doesn't have to care about liquidity management, they don't have to care about inbound liquidity, they don't have to care about resizing the channel or what's the fee from Phoenix for resizing my channel up and down. It just, quote unquote, works, and you've got your twelve words to write down and so on. So that part is interesting, and there may be some users who maybe they want some kind of stablecoin feature. There's, there's an aspect there, and also there's a Bitcoin on-chain. So it's kind of, it is interesting that it's co-- it's kind of got the balance there. But then, I guess that's the other question as well, like how much, how deep into these trade-offs do you go? If, as an example, let's say somebody comes" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "10:59", "start": 658.9, "text": "I've got this Bitcoin either on an exchange or I hold Bitcoin ETF or I hold MicroStrategy, but I'd like to, you know, do some, get some Bitcoin. What is the kind of, at that point, Ben, are you putting them on Aqua or like, how do you, how would you navigate that?" }, { "speaker": "btc_sessions_k3tan", "time": "11:15", "start": 675.22, "text": "Yeah, I mean, if they're, I, I, again, I suppose it, it- It depends on the amount of Bitcoin that they're receiving. If they're like, \"Yeah, hey, let's, I'm, I'm doing, you know, thousands of dollars worth of Bitcoin, then I'm gonna get them on chain with like a good on chain wallet and probably point them to something like Sparrow, like, \"Let's start your learning journey.\" If they're like, \"I, you know, I wanna start with like a hundred bucks or something like that,\" I'm probably Based on the person's perceived technical ability, I might point them to Aqua or, or something along those lines, and just say like, \"Hey, if this builds up to a certain amount, there's a, there's a button that you can use, and then you can, you know, we can start exploring like hardware, things like that.\" so, but, but that answer is currently so malleable for me because I, I just don't know how right, things are moving around so quickly." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "12:07", "start": 726.89, "text": "Yeah, no, I, I'd echo that as well. Like if it was for me, if someone came up to me, I'd be like, \"Yeah, look, hey, it's Sparrow Wallet time.\" Or if you're on your mobile, then, yeah, I, I think I wish we had-- I don't know what the, the best solution is on mobile. I wish there was a Sparrow Wallet Mobile Edition, but it's, it's, it's not there. But yeah, again-- I guess you" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "12:27", "start": 747.27, "text": "could arguably say something like," }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "12:32", "start": 752.47, "text": "N" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "12:36", "start": 756.37, "text": "For, for a hundred dollars though, Stefan, I'd, I'd probably be just like, \"Hey, look, man, wallet of Satoshi, \"and you get that great experience or like a blink example, yeah, something like that." }, { "speaker": "btc_sessions_k3tan", "time": "12:45", "start": 765.34, "text": "Yeah. It's, it's a tricky thing to navigate. The, you know, I'm, I'm inclined to say Phoenix 'cause that's, that's what I like, but again, that person is gonna get a small channel, and then every time they receive, they're getting dinged with a channel like grind" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "13:00", "start": 779.59, "text": "and grind. And I believe Do a one time, you know, channel size of one thousand dollars or whatever, a million sat, whatever. Yeah, we need you to" }, { "speaker": "btc_sessions_k3tan", "time": "13:13", "start": 792.98, "text": "pay some money so that you can receive money. That doesn't open up the opportunity. Yeah, and then it's just gonna be like," }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "13:17", "start": 796.58, "text": "wait, I thought I was doing this to earn money, not spend it, and, and, you know, it's just awkward, right? So it's kind of-- And then, I mean, here's the other thing, if someone comes in more from the nostra side, then if they've got like Primal" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "13:36", "start": 816.37, "text": "A new person. And then here's the other thing, if you're on the spot with somebody, like you're at a Bitcoin event or a meetup or a conference, pointing to Sparrow kind of ends the conversation because you can't demo it for them, whereas if you like, oh, like, oh, here, let me show you now, here's how you do it on the phone. That might actually have a better chance of sticking, right? Because here's the thing, right? When somebody's talking to you right now, right here, you have an opportunity, and they're gonna listen to you right now and right here because you're showing it to them. Whereas if you tell them, \"Oh, hey, just remember to do this when you're at home,\" unless they're motivated, are they really gonna go and go through your Sparrow wallet, tutorial? As much as we would love them to do that." }, { "speaker": "btc_sessions_k3tan", "time": "14:13", "start": 853.01, "text": "Yeah. You, you want the, you want the wow factor Just what they go, wow. Yep. The, the hard thing to navigate, like right now, I think Katana, you're right, like the, the wallet of Satoshi experience is the experience that somebody wants for their first, but the, the pathway to self-sovereignty is then, okay, now that you actually have a meaningful amount of money, we gotta get you off that wallet that I told you to get on. So it's like, it's a difficult thing to navigate. This is why I'm bullish on what Blitz is doing, where it's all baked in and moves towards the right But it's, it's also very early for that, so there's gonna be bugs, there's gonna be problems, and you don't want that to pop up either. So I think Katon, what you were saying right of the gate is, you wait a little bit before you incorporate. I think that's, that's the right approach, especially when recommending things to newbies. Okay." }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "15:11", "start": 911.1, "text": "And then when it comes to, let's say trade-offs around liquid, right? How much are you gonna explain, right? Are you gonna be like, \"Well, actually, there's like eleven of fifteen functionaries, and, what you're actually holding isn't Bitcoin on chain, you're holding liquid Bitcoin, which is kind of like custodial Bitcoin, you know, custodied by the federation,\" and da da da da da da, like, \"Now, maybe...\" For smaller amounts, you just kind of let them do that until they are ready for that conversation. But how do you, how do you broach" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "15:39", "start": 938.96, "text": "that? So for me, I, I don't even broach the liquid conversation at all. I just say, \"Hey, look, if you've got a meaningful amount of money, it's going straight on chain. On chain or bust. On chain or bust. That's, that's my thing. Now, if you want to use liquid for some, you know, for some privacy benefit or whatever else, you're probably a bit more advanced or already I don't go about explaining it to new newcomers, I just say, \"Hey, look, if you've got, you know, a thousand or a million sats, for example, just save up towards that, and then once you're d-done with that, we'll, we'll just withdraw it straight on from the exchange into, the Sparrow wallet or a hardware wallet of your, of your choosing.\" that's probably where I'd go. I, I don't know if I'd go down the, \"Hey, let's do a" }, { "speaker": "btc_sessions_k3tan", "time": "16:32", "start": 992.16, "text": "Yeah, I, so, with the example of Aqua, I, I think when guiding somebody through that, I, you know, you, they've divided up in two buckets where it's savings and spendings, which I think is a, a, a good familiar approach for a newcomer. So I, I will say like, hey, if you're doing small amounts, you can receive into the spending wallet, and you can receive, you know, it's, it's kind of like if you go to a point of sale terminal and somebody- He pays with a debit card versus a Visa versus Mastercard, it doesn't matter, you just tap and it works. That's your savings wallet, you can receive Lightning, Liquid, and on-chain all to that wallet, and then it's easily accessible and spendable and cheap to use. But then I just say, if it gets to be more money in that, then you would feel comfortable with as cash, then you're gonna hit this swap button and move it into the savings, and if that builds up, then we'll, we'll talk." }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "17:28", "start": 1047.84, "text": "Okay, now it's hardware time. Yeah, got So that at least that" }, { "speaker": "btc_sessions_k3tan", "time": "17:32", "start": 1052.4, "text": "pathway is present there, there's the convenience. It's, you know, it's not impossible, but it's much more unlikely that the federation will fully rug everybody versus like, like a cashew mint or something like that. Yeah, for sure. At least there's some assurance, but there's a path" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "17:51", "start": 1070.89, "text": "This show brought to you by mempool dot space, the world's leading Bitcoin visualizer, and now they've got an accelerator program. So if you have a transaction that you sent at a fee that was too low to get confirmed, now you can fix this at, with the mempool accelerator. The way it works, you can go and search your transaction, scroll down, click accelerator, and you don't need an account, you can pay with Lightning, and then it'll show you it's now in the process of being accelerated, and then after a few minutes, it's confirmed. And so this is You are stuck, and this can happen where maybe your wallet doesn't have RBF or CPFP, or it might help you in situations where it's impractical to go and re-sign. So for example, multisig with keys in different locations. And thirdly, even in some lightning scenarios, perhaps a forced close, you might not be able to use RBF, and so in this case, the mempool accelerator can help you out. So keep it in mind, and you can find out more over at mempool.space/accelerator. This show brought to you by CoinKite dot com, the Bitcoin hardware security devices such as the Coldcard Mark IV and the new Coldcard Q. Now, we use Bitcoin hardware security devices to keep our keys offline, our private keys offline. Now, the way these work is you can do that setup, write down your twelve or twenty-four words on the, the seed word cards, and keep that secure. Now, you can use this device to interact with the Bitcoin network using software such as Sparrow Wallet, Electrum, or B'Crypt Desktop or Nunchuk, as a few Examples. Now, you have a range of security features that you can use with these devices, such as passphrase, or you can use seed x or, or my favorite is multi-signature. Now, if you're starting in a basic way, just start with the device and the USB-C cable, plug it directly to the computer and use it that way, and then later improve your setup. But I believe these devices are great at helping secure your coins, especially as you start to migrate up into multi-signature security. But don't be disheartened or Or don't be, scared away. They are accessible, and I think you actually do learn about Bitcoin in the process. So to get yours, go to coincard dot com, use code livera to get a discount on your cold card. Yeah. And I think it's important to kind of, if you're viewing it like, hey, Aqua or something like this is like your staging ground, right? That's kind of where you kind of keep it in the middle until you're, until you're ready to kind of get to something else like your cold card or your multisig or whatever, right? So that's kind of-- I think that's the way you can see it, and I think- In Bitcoin, I think in years gone by, there was a lot more kind of focus on like, oh no, Bitcoin only, no, no liquid, no altcoins, no stablecoin, nothing, just Bitcoin. Whereas now, I, I think it's more like I think the sense of it now is more like, just be pragmatic, right? Like if fees have risen, you know, 'cause that's the other thing that drove some of the liquid stuff was fees on chain had risen during the, you know, the spam episode of the last, you know, year or two. And so I think that's the other aspect. One other question I wanted to broach before we sort of move on to the hardware is, minimum thresholds. Like, do you, do you have a minimum threshold? Like some people talk about one million sats as the threshold for" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "21:07", "start": 1267.45, "text": "So I guess at today's prices, what is it, hundred and forty, or whatever, just say a thousand bucks, right? Say, roughly, you know, is that the threshold you would work with or how do you see that?" }, { "speaker": "btc_sessions_k3tan", "time": "21:18", "start": 1277.64, "text": "yeah, I was gonna say, I feel more secure having somebody, like, as-- assuming that the, the exchange is covering the withdrawal fee, which some do with batching and which is nice, if they're covering the withdrawal fee and they're doing on chain, or even if they're offering lightning or liquid withdrawals, still I feel like somebody's better off, you know, in self-custody, even sitting in liquid with a federation versus a single point of failure as the exchange. So if they're-- if, if I think that they're, they're capable of, you know, that process of, hey, hit, receive. And then based on their exchange, if it's on chain, they have a direct PEGIN option there, just hit this button and send here. I feel like that's a better way where you can build it to a million sats within that environment with your DCA. So" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "22:05", "start": 1325.33, "text": "coming back to that staging area concept, yeah." }, { "speaker": "btc_sessions_k3tan", "time": "22:08", "start": 1327.69, "text": "Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so, I, I think again, it's-- there's a, a spectrum here, but like single point of failure versus like eleven of fifteen. I'll go with the eleven of fifteen as I build some savings and then go I, I, that's how I would approach it. Yeah." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "22:25", "start": 1344.75, "text": "Yeah, for, for me historically, I've been, you know, just saying, \"Hey, look, once you get to a certain balance that you're uncomfortable with on an exchange, it's time to start withdrawing,\" and usually it ends up being a thousand dollars just as a, you know, as a make it worthwhile, but also you don't want too small UTXOs in your wallet as well, and so, yeah, it just kinda gets- Yeah, there's a balance. I'll just say, yeah, yeah, I think there's a balance there, and I just say, \"Hey, look, a million sats, probably the best, the, the mark there.\" Yeah, that's fair enough." }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "22:54", "start": 1373.71, "text": "Okay. So look, let's get into the hardware wallets and/or hardware signers discussion. So, so again, same question, what would you recommend for a noob, and what do you personally like using?" }, { "speaker": "btc_sessions_k3tan", "time": "23:08", "start": 1387.56, "text": "so I'm, you know, I'm, I'm a big fan of CoinKite. I l- I love all their stuff. Usually when I'm leaning that direction for- Kind of somebody just getting started that maybe doesn't wanna blow a lot on a hardware device, I'll just say, \"Hey, try out a TapSighner. Like the, the, the ease of spending, like type in a pin and half a-- Right, and it's like forty bucks," }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "23:27", "start": 1407.16, "text": "something like that, yeah. Yeah," }, { "speaker": "btc_sessions_k3tan", "time": "23:28", "start": 1408.12, "text": "that's for forty bucks. And so, you know, it's mobile friendly, a lot of people may not be using a laptop or something like that." }, { "speaker": "btc_sessions_k3tan", "time": "23:38", "start": 1417.72, "text": "I'll, I'll say, like, \"Yeah, well, this is, you know, it, It's a good entry point. I do try to level people up to a cold card, namely the Q, over time. I think that's kind of the way to go. I'm not beyond, yeah, yeah, I'm, I'm not beyond allowing people to take steps to use it in the most secure way, though. So like if, if somebody is, is, super timid, then sometimes I have to recognize, like, you know what, for this person in particular, they may just be plugging that thing in, and that's okay, in my opinion, and then I And leave the breadcrumbs of, hey, like once, once you're comfortable with that arrow, let's, let's look at airgapping, and using the QR codes or whatever. I think there's a pathway there, but again, I love the TapSigner, I love the Coldcard Q. I did just try out the Bitkey the other day, I can see Who their target market is, it's not the hardened Bitcoiner or somebody that's maybe on the pathway to being a hardened Bitcoiner, but it was very, very easy, I'll say. there's a lot of nuance there, but my hope is that the ease of use that they have with that product is seen by vendors and has begun to be emulated, perhaps without certain trade-offs that, that they have. Yeah, my default right now is kind of Tap Sign or Coldcard Q. Yeah," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "25:03", "start": 1502.77, "text": "K3tan? yeah, for me it'd be Coldcard Q as well, and one of the, I guess, the reasons for that is the full keyboard. I like the full keyboard. I, and I think that that, that helps with passphrase management a lot better than clicking down into a menu and tapping a thousand times. And so, yeah, look, the Coldcard Q was probably my pick there for a hardware wallet. Yeah, that's kind of what I use, and I think noobs can use it as well, but yeah, you have to-- there, And I think the Sparrow wallet documentation does a good job of, you know, how to, yeah, walking you through that. Yeah. So I, I send people there as well. But, yeah, it, it Yeah, the instructions are thin on the actual Coldcard Q, but the Sparrow wallet will just, you know, solidify that for you, so I like it." }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "25:52", "start": 1551.59, "text": "Yeah. And obviously, I'll point out, obviously, I'm sponsored by Coincard, I think Ben, I believe you are sponsored by Coincard also, but I will say, honestly, I, I was recommending Coldcard even before they sponsored me, and I genuinely, I think it's a really great product. One point I will make here as well is that- You can do a really easy, like, let's say you get them to get a cold card queue, get three triple A batteries, and then they can just use Nunchuk on the phone." }, { "speaker": "btc_sessions_k3tan", "time": "26:15", "start": 1575.39, "text": "Yes." }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "26:16", "start": 1575.77, "text": "No other cables required. Like, you can just do QR codes or NFC if you wish, and that is worlds ahead of where we used to be years ago, right? Because years ago, I would be telling them, \"Oh, okay, get the cold card. You gotta get the, recharge cable for this. You gotta get the SD card, and then your laptop might not have an" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "26:37", "start": 1596.93, "text": "You can still do that, and I still do, but having QR code and just batteries means you can tell somebody, \"Hey, just buy this, buy three AAA batteries, and use Nunchuk on the phone. Boom. That's like-- there's a certain simplicity to that that is easier for setup, right? And so that's something. But let's talk a little bit about also the price points as well. So do you guys have any comments on the price points and what-- Thresholds, coming back to again, thresholds. How much Bitcoin should that person have? Let's say you've put them onto a phone wallet to start with, what is the threshold above which you would say, okay, it's time to get a hardware device?" }, { "speaker": "btc_sessions_k3tan", "time": "27:13", "start": 1633.48, "text": "That's a, that's a tough one. That's gonna be very personal for each person. You know, also it pertains very much to the same on-chain discussion that we're having before. Like a million sats is like where you're sitting on chain, you know, that currently is like a thousand bucks. I think that you should For Bitcoin as if it's worth ten times what it is right now. And so when you're looking at a thousand bucks, that's going to be ten. Is it worth dropping two hundred dollars on a device that will secure ten thousand dollars' value? I think yes. And so what you're really doing is you're trying to get somebody to future-proof so that when it suddenly is ten grand instead of one, they're not scrambling to learn self-custody and cold storage, they already mastered it when they had one ten. The value. That's my, my take." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "28:04", "start": 1683.57, "text": "Yeah, no, I, I, I'd agree with that. For me, two to three hundred dollars would be my price point for a hardware wallet. That, that would kind of be where I'd, I'd be looking at. And if, yeah, for a th- like for a thou- like a million sats is where I'd probably be starting that. And then, yeah, if you've got five grand, then, yeah, it definitely it's time to move on to a hardware wallet. Yeah, and if you think" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "28:22", "start": 1702.43, "text": "percentage-wise," }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "28:31", "start": 1711.09, "text": "Five thousand bucks on their phone, I mean, maybe, maybe some people that are, and depends where you live, right? If you're in a kind of a safer area, maybe that's okay, and maybe other parts of the world, you're not comfortable with that, and so, but even as you said, the percentage Let's say two hundred and, so as I check, CoinKite, it's two hundred and forty dollars, but you can get a discount code, you know, Code Livera, I'm sure BTC Sessions is also a code, so there's codes out there, you can get a bit of a discount on it, and then it's like two hundred and twenty bucks or something like that. If you've got five thousand dollars or ten thousand dollars, i.e. point oh five BTC or point one BTC, it's a no-brainer, right? Like we're talking maybe two percent or So, I think that's, that's an interesting point, that I think people easily forget, right? That this is a small percentage, you know, once it becomes that, that size, it's a very small percentage of your stack that You know, the amount is almost trivial compared to, you know, how much you're securing." }, { "speaker": "btc_sessions_k3tan", "time": "29:35", "start": 1775.0, "text": "Well, you're giving up a percentage or two, in exchange for giving up a hundred percent when you screw up and lose your coins." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "29:42", "start": 1782.1, "text": "Well, that's right. Like, i-if you're, say, for example, you are traveling and you've got it on your mobile phone, and the TSA agent decides, \"Hey, I wanna scan your phone,\" or something happens, you know, while you're crossing borders or something like that, then, yeah, like, why risk" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "29:59", "start": 1799.13, "text": "Leave that at home, and then roam around with two, three hundred dollars on your, on your phone, instead of five or ten." }, { "speaker": "btc_sessions_k3tan", "time": "30:06", "start": 1805.8, "text": "I'll, I'll, I'll say you also just made a good case for the TapSigner, for traveling because it just fits in your" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "30:12", "start": 1811.76, "text": "wallet, right? Yeah. Yeah, it's not" }, { "speaker": "btc_sessions_k3tan", "time": "30:13", "start": 1813.16, "text": "often that the TSA asks you to em-dump out your credit card on people. Yeah, that's true. That's true." }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "30:19", "start": 1818.81, "text": "The lead sponsor of this show is Bold, the best place to buy, sell, and save Bitcoin. For listeners in the US, Bold lets you secure your financial future with complete peace of mind by integrating a low fee Bitcoin only brokerage with next gen multisig vaults. With Bold, you can smash buy Bitcoin or set a DCA plan for only zero point nine nine percent fees and seamlessly deposit the Bitcoin direct to your Bold Vault. The Bold Vault is a two or three collaborative multisig where you hold two keys and Bold holds one as a redundant backup. Backup protecting against loss or theft. You can use Trezor, Ledger or cold card hardware wallets to spin up a Bold Vault in just a few minutes, and the Bold Vault is the only collaborative custody vault available with zero monthly fees. 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And importantly, it's not just about choosing one place, it may be multiple places, and it may be also about making the pieces fit together in terms of how your business fits with your family and you as an individual. Nomad Capitalists have helped many, many people in terms of going overseas, and if you're interested, go to nomadcapitalist dot com slash apply. This is applicable for people with a net worth of Above one million US dollars. That's nomadcapitalist dot com slash apply. And now, back to the show. Right, yeah. I mean, everything is trade-offs, right? And the TapS owner doesn't have a screen, so there's certain trade-offs to that. Or even the Bitkey, right? That was probably one of my criticisms of the Bitkey, but I want to be fair to them also. They are also helping noobs get off the exchange, right? And generally speaking, I'm happy for people to get off the exchange or custodians, so that's a" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "32:41", "start": 1961.12, "text": "Yeah, not having a screen makes it hard to actually verify where are you sending the, those coins to, right? So then you're just kind of trusting when you do the, and I have had a test unit, I got sent a unit as well, with this bit key, and it, it has like a little, you know, fingerprint reader thing, so it kind of goes green once you, you know, you authenticate like that, But it does have some interesting recovery features, and I think those are worth talking about also, right? Because it's one thing for us to tell people, \"Hey, try, try out these hardware wallets,\" but it's also, \"What's it gonna be like in four or five years' time?\" Let's say number has gone up, like as you said, you know, who knows if the price has gone up, fixed or whatever, in that time, and it's now worth a lot more money, and if that person, you know, now has to think about recovery and inheritance and" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "33:31", "start": 2011.43, "text": "Sustaining that. Do you have any tips, any thoughts you wanna share there?" }, { "speaker": "btc_sessions_k3tan", "time": "33:35", "start": 2014.98, "text": "Yeah, I mean, it's, it's, I think the most important thing with whatever hardware somebody is going with is that they actually go through the recovery process with a small amount on it during the initial setup process. Yeah. the, the First of all, you make sure that your backup is actually right, working, yeah. and working. And secondly, like the amount of stress if something happens to your device and you've not tried to backup, like that's worth it alone to, to have gone through it entirely beforehand. And, I, I mean, I've heard horror stories of people going, \"I just, I, my, you know, my device crapped out, I went to recover, and my seed phrases are in-invalid, and I don't know what I did or if I rearranged them. Some words or if I wrote something wrong, and, and so then it becomes like testing stuff out, and then maybe you, you might be forced to go to, you know, somebody that's gonna try and brute force it for you, and then it's like your fate is in their hands, like they could say it didn't work or whatever. So, yeah, test your backups as you're setting up the device, and, you know, load it with a small amount, and then if that works, then, then you know you're good, you're safe, you can continue, and Yeah. And also test" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "34:53", "start": 2093.22, "text": "all of those functions. So, so receive, send, a lot of people forget to just, you know, just send and then, yeah, backup and restore. Obviously, those four functions are absolutely critical for whatever option that you're using." }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "35:06", "start": 2105.61, "text": "Yeah. Okay. Now, while we're on the conversation of hardware wallets, hardware signers, now a typical way people start is just, you know, basic single signature, no passphrase, no multisig, et cetera. Do you guys have any tips for people who are thinking about when they should? Upgrade, like what is the right time for a hodler to think about, okay, now it's getting to a larger amount, it's time to think about doing passphrase or doing multisig. How do you, how do you broach that or how do you explain that for people? So I" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "35:35", "start": 2134.97, "text": "think what Ben said earlier, this is like the bull market is probably not the best time to be looking at what's going on and trying to overhaul your setup. I think emotions fly a lot when prices are going up and you get scared and you, you may do something Without all things considered properly. So you should be doing it, in my opinion, in the bear market when bit-- no one gives a shit about your Bitcoin or Bitcoin in general. So I think that's probably the best time to be like, okay, well, if this was to ten x This is what I sh- this is where I wanna be. And if that's the case, then you might wanna add in a passphrase, or you may wish to upgrade to multisig. But I don't know if you should be doing that during the bull run. That's when you're gonna, it, it's, it's going to, you, you may shoot yourself in the foot. For testing, that's fine for small amounts, but your entire stack? that's, you know, I would probably hold off on that idea and just sort of think th- think through very," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "36:35", "start": 2195.24, "text": "Things, because, yeah, you could lose things, you could shoot yourself in the foot, things go wrong. But generally speaking, like just as a general rule, twelve words is enough, okay? It is still, it's, it's, it's not broken, right? Twelve words is still enough, twenty-four words is even better, but If you want to move to a passphrase and if you want to move to multi-sig, then yes, take some time, test first and then move to it. I think that's, that's probably the best way of going about it, not during a bull run when, you know, your emotions are flying way too high." }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "37:10", "start": 2230.39, "text": "Yeah. I mean, I'd just quickly add, as, as a general rule, don't be too quick to kind of move your full cold stack to some new thing, you know, like whether it's new software or new hardware, just kind of Maybe play around with small amounts, but don't kind of move your big huddle cold stack to anything new and un-battled tested. It needs to be battle tested and out there for years before you even think about putting a serious amount of coin on there. And what you could do as an example during a bull run, you might think, \"Look, the, the number has gone up, five x, ten x, whatever, who knows, and...\" Now it's time to actually just buy some different devices and test, have some test setups and kinda have that ready as your test setup, and you know how to-- you're comfortable with recovering, you're comfortable with like, oh, if, let's say I've set up a three of five, and I know this thing is-- this device is gone, I know how to recover that device, I know how to still spend using my multisig, things like this. That's kinda how I would view it. So don't just kinda think, \"Oh, new hardware wallet came out, I'm gonna Be wary and be sort of methodical about it is how I would, approach it. Ben, anything to add there?" }, { "speaker": "btc_sessions_k3tan", "time": "38:23", "start": 2303.08, "text": "Yeah, so I agree with the, the general sentiment of the last time you wanna be making quick decisions is when you're emotional because the price is going wild. I think The way that I tend to think of it is, if, if you're on an exchange during a bull run, then yes, you should be actively learning self custody right now, even though it's, it's a bull run, like that's, that's priority, 'cause we all saw what happened last bull run. Inevitably, there's, there's blowups, so I think that's one of the exceptions where it's like, okay, you're, you're gonna start learning, but you're gonna be slow and methodical. You're not just suddenly moving vast amounts of money. Around, you're, you're slow and intentional with what you're doing, and you're going to a pretty battle-hardened basic setup to start. What I will say in and around upgrading from, say, single sig to adding a passphrase or single sig to multisig or whatever it may be, I think given like the length of cycles, I think it's okay to be learning and perhaps migrating during a bull run, but again, not the knee-jerk. Just went up a whole bunch, I gotta move everything fast. No, it's again slow and methodical. Learn, take five percent, something like that, move it over, get used to that. As you get more comfortable, take chunks and start migrating, but you, you can't be You're more likely gonna shoot yourself in the foot than somebody's gonna kick in your door and ask for your seed phrase. So just, just be cognizant of that. you know, you can also without even having- To do, like, try something new and put in a, a, a passphrase with the Q, they have trick pins. So you can have a pin on your device, and when you type it in, the cold card looks like it hasn't been initialized yet. So like, there's, there's ways around that where at least you can have some plausible deniability, or it leads to a decoy wallet, and you put- A thousand bucks in there. So there's things that you can do in the interim that aren't gonna risk the existing stack, but are also gonna give you a, if somebody is actually threatening you, in, in person, you can say like, \"Uh, my, you know, my main stack or like...\" Whether you even say something like that is, is somewhere else, but this is what I have here. This is why I have this device, it's protecting like a thousand bucks. Here's, here's the pin, check it out yourself. that's some, that's a, a, a viable path. Right." }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "40:58", "start": 2457.64, "text": "Okay. Yeah, so look, we gotta get on, let's move on to the nodes conversation. gotta leave some time for that. So, you know, just, I guess, intro just for people who are new. I guess if you're new, you might have heard about running a Bitcoin node. The point of this isn't necessarily to sort of save the network or whatever, it's, it's a selfish act, right? You're doing this because you want to verify your own Bitcoin transactions, your own history, and maybe you wanna be able to protect your ability to transact That's kind of what you're doing. And so there are various ways to operate your own Bitcoin node, right? There are these node in a box, you know, packages. Some of them are software packages you can download, some of them are actual hardware things that you can buy and plug in and operate. And of course, you can run it on your own laptop if you are, you know, so inclined. So with that kind of intro out of the way, what are your thoughts, guys? What are your kind of favorite node in a box or stack that you'd like to use?" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "41:56", "start": 2516.24, "text": "Okay, Notebox, obviously, but I do like, you know, what Startline are doing. You know, there's, there's plenty of options and I'm grateful for all of them. I like, you know, the, the, the, there's the Umbral of the world, there's, you know, Ronin Dojo, there's Mineo, there's, you know, plenty of Raspberry Blits, there's a whole bunch of options for Bitcoiners to run their own Bitcoin node based on whatever hardware that they like. But for me, I like the Ministry of Nodes Bitcoin Notebox" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "42:27", "start": 2546.72, "text": "myself, which is a trade-off in itself, right? And so that's, that's kind of like the, the DIY approach, you're not really using another, a trusted third party to sort of install and keep it updated and all, all that sort of stuff, you're doing it yourself, you know, what I use, but I know that that's probably not viable for everyone, especially if you're, you know, brand new and you're just like, \"What is Linux?\" So yeah, like, I think that I'm, you know, a start line would be something that, But Ben, what do you think?" }, { "speaker": "btc_sessions_k3tan", "time": "42:59", "start": 2578.83, "text": "Yeah, I mean, I love that the DIY stuff is possible and like for the technically inclined that want-- or somebody who wants a weekend project, I think that's fantastic. Out of the kind of pre-constructed like node in a box, and I guess, you know, I, I should say as well, for people that are just looking for the, the idea of, I just wanna run, a copy of the Bitcoin blockchain and reference that one for my on-chain transactions, you can just download Download Bitcoin Core on, on your computer and link Sparrow to it, and then like all your transactions, you're viewing your copy of the blockchain. So that's possible and that's free. So that's, so people should be aware of that. But I also like, you know, I'm, I'm playing around with Lightning, I like running my own instance of mempool.space to look at transaction information and other things. And so K3tan, I'm in, on the same lines as you. I, I think that Start9 is, it's, for me, it strikes the sweet" }, { "speaker": "btc_sessions_k3tan", "time": "43:57", "start": 2636.78, "text": "Plug and play, you just get the thing, you plug it into the wall and plug it into your router, and then you just go to any computer or device on your network and type in the IP address and it just shows up in your browser, and then you have like an app store where you can download things and, and, and go from there. That's, that's perfect. Now, I know that Umbrel has made some trade-offs to make theirs much more user-friendly and, and beautiful to look at and all that, and I appreciate that, like, they, they kind of set the bar for like user experience, I think. But what I like about Start9 is the approach where, especially with the Pure, they've, they've tried to go as open source as they possibly can with both the software and the hardware. I also really, really like the approach that they're taking with the marketplace or the app store, in that That, yes, they have the Startnine marketplace where you download apps, but you can also manually plug in anyone's self-hosted app store. And so the end vision of that is if Startnine had their doors kicked in and they shut down their servers, anybody could spin up their own app store and it could become known amongst the community, and people can just plug that in, and your Startnine still functions, and you're still able to download apps, get updates, all of that. Still lives on, and so that resilience is really attractive to me, paired with the ease of use. It's a little bit more technical than Umbral, but I think it strikes a good balance." }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "45:24", "start": 2723.66, "text": "Yeah. okay. And then what are you guys finding in terms of performance and cost effectiveness? You know, there's different types of devices that you can use, so any comments there? Yeah," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "45:34", "start": 2734.14, "text": "so obviously Ben alluded to the freest one, which is your laptop. If it's got, you know, two terabytes on it already, then happy days, then you can just download the whole, you know, chain and, and off you go. And I think, but if you want a dedicated device that's always online, then I, I like the office PCs, those refurbished office PCs, like a Dell Optiplex, that's my favorite. They're just workhorses, the boomers built 'em, and they still just keep running, like, you know So the, the, yeah, that's why I, I kind of just, I, I want something that's always online. I'm not meddling with it, I'm not fiddling with it. I, it just, it's always there. And they're relatively cheap, right? I think, so Australian, a hundred and fifty bucks would get me one of those paired with a two terabyte SSD, another hundred and fifty dollars, say, you're looking at a cheap Bitcoin node out at, like, ready for hardware at three hundred Australian, which I don't know what that amounts to, But, you know, it is what it is. Yeah." }, { "speaker": "btc_sessions_k3tan", "time": "46:35", "start": 2795.28, "text": "Canadian dollars are about the same place as you, so we're talking nickels here. Yeah." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "46:40", "start": 2800.48, "text": "but yeah, it, it's, it's relatively cheap to get those. Raspberry Pis, I, I'm still not convinced. with, so they just came out with a Raspberry Pi five with sixteen gigs of RAM, they just announced that, for a hundred and twenty US dollars. I, I just, I, I think the CPU is the bottleneck there rather than the RAM, when you're doing That's probably, it's just, it's just out of reach. I think back in the day, maybe, yes, it was okay, but now I think you need something a little bit more rock solid. An Intel processor would be, you know, where, where you, where you need to be. So a NUC, a laptop, a, an office refurbished PC, that's where you need to be in terms of hardware or whatever, like for example, if Startline ships you something, obviously it's gonna, the hardware's gonna be compatible, so that's Yeah. Yeah. Any thoughts" }, { "speaker": "btc_sessions_k3tan", "time": "47:36", "start": 2855.86, "text": "on hardware? Yeah, I'd pretty much just echo that. Like if you're, if you're doing DIY, you probably don't wanna go with a Raspberry Pi. And part of it, one of the issues is when you're plugging in an external SSD, like the power draw on it, like those things weren't necessarily designed to have, like a, a, a something like that drawing power constantly. So those are some of the issues that you might run into. Whereas if you get like an Intel NUC, like an old one, it's, it And have no issues, and it can just always be on and you, you don't really have to worry. I've got, again, I've got a Start9 be-behind me, but I've also, for the Ashigaru wallet, I did the, set up a Dojo on an old Intel Nook, and this thing, I don't know how many years old it is, but It's, it's on right now, since I made it, it's running fine, so, yeah, I, I think that's the way to go." }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "48:27", "start": 2907.0, "text": "Yeah, and I think I'd, I'd just here that it's important to, again, understand you're either paying with your money or paying with your time, because sometimes when we have these conversations, you'll kind of hear someone saying, \"Oh, but you, what, you shouldn't pay for this, you should just DIY, do it yourself,\" or whatever, but it's sort of like they're not thinking about, okay, Or Electrum server or this other thing, whereas if you just bought the product, right? Like as an example, the Ministry of Nodes node box, which I use as well, I think it's three fifty USD plus shipping, and that's probably on the cheaper side, there are devices ranging up to maybe six hundred, seven hundred, something like that, But for some people, it's, it's actually worth your while, right? Like if you're storing, you know, serious amount of coin, right? Like hundred thousand dollars plus or one BTC plus, it's kind of like, yeah, would you pay, you know, point three five percent of your stack to make sure you're verifying it correctly instead of just trusting somebody else's node? Yeah, when you put it in those terms, it is kind of worth your while." }, { "speaker": "btc_sessions_k3tan", "time": "49:31", "start": 2971.11, "text": "Well, the general-- I think the general lesson is, if my kid shoves a toy down the toilet, I could Become a plumber, or I could pay somebody to come over and fix the problem that's been doing it for their whole lives and save myself, you know, twenty hours of figuring out how to unclog a toilet or open up my drains and figure that out. I'd prefer to spend my time providing value to others in a way that will make me enough money to pay for the plumber. Yep." }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "49:57", "start": 2997.4, "text": "Great way to think about it. Yeah. Alright, so yeah, we've spoken a bit about that, like nodes that are running a lot of software and a lot of apps versus the more minimal What do you guys think there?" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "50:09", "start": 3009.03, "text": "I appreciate both, so I appreciate having a node that has all of the things, just so that I can test them out, see what's going on, what's good. Otherwise, how do I know what's good, right? If, if I'm not given those options, how do I know, is this worthwhile? Is this a great-- But Bitcoiners are building out so much software these days, and we need to see, okay, look, what's good, what's, what's, you know, what can be improved upon, you know, you can But it all starts with just actually using it. So the kitchen sink approach is fantastic, but I also, I also, value having another node that just sits there like a workhorse and is always up, is always reliable, is always gonna be there when I need to transact, whether it's three o'clock in the morning or wh-whatever, whatever I need it to do, I value that as well. So I think that that's probably where I stand, have to. Maybe that might be an option so that you can, yeah. Part of," }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "51:09", "start": 3069.37, "text": "yeah. But to be fair, part of it is like, guys like us, we are kind of more professionally, you know, for somebody who- Maybe they just want to huddle, maybe it's a different conversation for them. Maybe they would just have one, you know? Exactly," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "51:22", "start": 3082.26, "text": "and, and that for them, that would be the, the reliable approach, the cheap, the, the, the strong horse, the thing that goes. But if you like to tinker and if you like lightning and if you like this and you like that and you, you want to experience more, then maybe the, the kitchen sink node is, is, is for you as well." }, { "speaker": "btc_sessions_k3tan", "time": "51:40", "start": 3100.27, "text": "Yeah. I, I usually frame it with the question, \"How crazy are you?\" How do, how do you, how do you wanna think of this? Like, do you like to click" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "51:49", "start": 3108.64, "text": "lots of buttons and try lots of things? Or do you just want like solid, reliable, you know? Yeah. And, and" }, { "speaker": "btc_sessions_k3tan", "time": "51:54", "start": 3114.3, "text": "are you one of those person-- one of those people that, that is gonna be like, \"I want my full--\" My full online life to, to actually be fully self-sovereign, like I want every-- I'm running everything in my home, any like smart devices are linked through my thing, like all my stuff is hosted. If that's you, then I would say what Katan said, where maybe it's time to look at two. You've got your Bitcoin workhorse, and then you've got your, your digital life device that's like your server for, for that purpose. That's, that's maybe the pathway, but if- If you're just tinkering, if you got most of your Bitcoin stuff that you're doing, and then you wanna play around and test some other things, that's, that's totally cool." }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "52:37", "start": 3157.35, "text": "Yeah. Alright, so I, I guess I'll just quickly summarize that for listeners who are just thinking, \"Look, I don't really care about all this other stuff, I just want something to do my Bitcoin stuff.\" Then something that runs Bitcoin Core or, or a, a Bitcoin implementation and an Electrum server that you can point your Sparrow wallet to to understand, like your Sparrow wallet is then gonna From that Electrum server that you run, that's, you know, that's where you might want just a more minimal approach versus the running lots of apps where if you want those extra features, that's another different product and different services there. so let's finish up, that's the nodes aspect of it. Let's get now to the merchants conversation. So in this, let's say, topic or theme, we're talking about how do you best enable, you know, the individual, the sovereign individual, the sovereign businessman to be a merchant and actually take payments? Payment in Bitcoin. So, yeah, so, so, like we were saying before, what's the, what's the, what would you recommend for a noob versus what do you like to use personally? Now, there's a bunch of different approaches, so let's hear it from you guys." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "53:42", "start": 3221.81, "text": "Okay, so for me, my personal use, I love BTC Pay Server. It's free, it's free and open source software, it is fantastic. It's just stuck with me and I've used it for years. And because it was so good, I probably haven't explored any other of the options. so for me, it's like, okay, I've got this thing, it works, it works 100% of the time, it's always up, and it just, it, I, I, I get paid, and that, that, and it's great. Hey, server. And yeah, for noobs though, I'm not quite sure what to recommend. Maybe Ben can sort of go from there, but yeah." }, { "speaker": "btc_sessions_k3tan", "time": "54:19", "start": 3259.35, "text": "Yeah. I mean, like you said, BTC Pay is like the shining beacon of what everybody would like to attain in terms of self-sovereignty. Obviously, the things that are gonna come up in that realm are like self-hosting, like, are you running this on your own device? If so, you're gonna need some networking knowledge to make it accessible on public internet, 'cause it's all, like, Startnine is Tor by default Like that's, that's a thing you gotta deal with, or you're hosting it on like Luna node or Voltage or whatever. So there's, you know, if you're hosting, then there's costs associated with that too. So lots to navigate with BTC Pay, but what they've done there is nothing short of a miracle. It's beautiful software, I'm so happy with everything that they've done. If we, if we step back to like somebody brand new, they're like, \"I'm in person, I wanna accept Bitcoin,\" or just on a very simplistic, \"I'm in front of a person and I'm gonna, I need a keypad and I need to receive Bitcoin,\" and then it's something where they'll be able to have like full self custody At some point down the line. Honestly, I think Coinos is, is doing a good job in that respect. In regards to, there's a caveat where it is, it is custodial. You're able to do Lightning, Liquid, and on-chain all as a single unified balance, and there's a setting where you can trigger a withdraw at certain thresholds to your own self custody. So at least the person can say like, \"Alright, I hit a million sats, it auto-withdraws to my hardware.\" So it's- There's that path to self-sovereignty with the ease of use on the front end. Now, if you're getting a little bit more granular than that and you wanna start, you're doing like invoicing, you need point of sale, you need like payment links and stuff like that, Zapright is For me, hands down, the winner there. There, like what, what Parker and team have done is, is astounding. John at Zapright, he's a magician. It's basically you can plug in whatever you need. Zapright never takes any custody, it's just they're a portal for you to be able to use. So you can do invoicing, you can have a, a point of sale on your phone, you can have payment links where people have set amounts that they pay you, tip pages, all that. And they have plugins for whatever you're using. So you've got an on-chain wallet, grab your xPub, plunk it in, it will generate a new, a new address every single time. You have, if you're running your own lightning node, you can link that through to ZapRight. But if you're not running your own lightning node, you can, if you have Strike, where you are, you can just link that in. If you have, like Alby. So, the way I've done it, I've actually got Alby Hub on my Start9 But I just plunk in my, Lightning address and it will auto like generate the invoices for me. So when I get paid through Zapright, when I'm invoicing, when I'm doing tips, whatever, it all goes directly to my Startnine Lightning node or it goes directly to, my Coldcard. And so like it's just, it's seamless, and the best part about it is if you do get people that pay you in fiat as well, you also have plugins for like Stripe and PayPal and like the, the fiat ones, but you can charge a premium for fiat if you wanna discourage it. So like, again, I, I can't say enough good things about Zapright, it's like right in that sweet spot where if you need more control. But you want self-sovereignty and you want self-custody, then it's, it's right there." }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "57:53", "start": 3472.53, "text": "Fascinating, yeah. And I think we're gonna see lots of approaches, and it's kind of, you know, there's so many out there, right? Like we said, BTC Pay, ZapRight, I think Blink might even have some merchant feature as well, Coinnos, as you said, and some of the well-known ones like OpenNode and eBEX Pay. I think CoinCorner have a merchant thing, Bitfinex, I think they also have like Bit" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "58:17", "start": 3497.4, "text": "Using Breeze SDK, and so it's like using that node listing. So I think the idea is the end user can pay Lightning, you the, let's say if you're a freelancer, you're a digital nomad or whatever, it can kind of take it into, liquid Bitcoin, and then you can swap it out as you need, right? So on the, on the front end, it can show a Lightning invoice that you can kind of, you know, take it in liquid without having to deal with channels and that kind of aspect of it. So there's kind of all these different All with different costs and fees as well. So, and then I guess for some certain users, depending on who you're talking to, they may still need fiat right now. Of course, we all wish we could live, fully on Bitcoin, but, you know, today we still have to interact with the fiat system to either pay our rent and our bills and our whatever. So, what are some approaches that you find practical there for, let's say you're talking to somebody who's like, \"I wanna take payment in Bitcoin, but I still need some fiat because I've got bills" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "59:17", "start": 3557.34, "text": "Do they go to the KYC exchange? Do they use stable sat? Do they get stable coins? Do they sell it peer to peer? What do you normally recommend?" }, { "speaker": "btc_sessions_k3tan", "time": "59:26", "start": 3565.67, "text": "Well, I mean, if somebody's just starting to accept Bitcoin, first off, you're not gonna get a hundred percent of your payments in Bitcoin. You're gonna get-- You'll, you'll be lucky to get Bitcoin payments unless you're very, very vocal about it to the Bitcoin community. If you are vocal about it, you'll get some Bitcoin payments, which is great, and you're likely already, hopefully, spending less than Earn and able to save a little bit so the Bitcoin payments that come in, you can just save." }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "59:53", "start": 3592.67, "text": "Right. You just huddle those and spend out of your fiat income, yeah." }, { "speaker": "btc_sessions_k3tan", "time": "59:56", "start": 3596.01, "text": "But that said, I'm, I'm at a point where I, ninety-five percent of my income is Bitcoin. And so, I've gotta use different mechanisms to be able to, to be able to like make ends meet and make sure that I'm able to survive. So, I mean, I'm in Canada, so there's, there's different, there's actually two different services in Canada where you can just pay your bills in Bitcoin. There's Bitcoin Wallet and there's Bull Bitcoin, and they both offer bill payment services. They say, \"What bill do you wanna pay? How much?\" And then they, here's a QR code, send your Bitcoin, and then they take care of the Gift cards for day-to-day stuff, for gas cards, for groceries, things like that. You can use things like Bitrefill, Coin Cards, Bitcoin Company, all those, you can just, you know, send a Lightning payment and get a, a scannable barcode that you just scan at the grocery store. And then the last piece of it for me has been building out a local community. So we, in Calgary, we have the Sat Market now, it's been running for about a year, we do it a, a couple times a year, but the important part is that we've all made connections with each other where, and it's not just like apparel, it's not like just buying Bitcoin shirts or something like that, it's like day to day needs. So I know farmers where I can go get eggs and beef and chicken and all of that. I have tradesmen, like we were talking about plum My kid does, shoves stuff down the toilet, and I pay in Bitcoin for the Bitcoin plumber to come to my house and fix it. He's been here three times already. But like, I can, I can get my daily needs met. My barber is, is accepting Bitcoin. Like, I'm-- we've, we've got it nailed down, and I think that's the most resilient approach is if you can begin to build a community locally that can't be shut down. They can't tell you who to be friends with, and if somebody happens to bring over two dozen eggs, and I happen" }, { "speaker": "btc_sessions_k3tan", "time": "01:01:48", "start": 3708.57, "text": "The eggs, then, you know, who's to say that I'm not allowed to do that?" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:01:54", "start": 3714.33, "text": "Yeah, no, look, I think, I think those are fantastic options. With Ministry of Nodes, I use the gift card stuff as well. So like, if I need to buy SSDs, Bitrefill to get an Amazon gift voucher, bang, I'm straight in. But again, yes, most-- like, I will have a fiat income, so most-- some, some people do decide to pay instead of using Bitcoin and taking the, the discount, some still, still pay via I'll take that, and I'll just, I'll, I'll use that first, before going into the, to the Bitcoin stack. But yeah, that, that's kind of where I'm at with that. And if I needed to sell, then yeah, it'd be through, you know, just buying a gift card or, yeah, yeah, that's really" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "01:02:34", "start": 3754.4, "text": "one of the main ways you would, main ways to go about it. Okay, fair enough. yeah, so we've spoken a bit about a bunch of things, wallets, nodes, merchants," }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "01:02:48", "start": 3768.59, "text": "So much recently, and yet the fees are actually relatively low, right? As I, as I look right now, you can get into the next block for seven satz per vbyte, and in fiat terms, that's about ninety-three US cents to get into the next block, and people getting into blocks even cheaper than that. Is it odd to you that fees are this low while Bitcoin is up above ninety thousand? For me, no." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:03:12", "start": 3792.27, "text": "I've seen more patterns with this. Like around Christmas, New Year's, the network is generally pretty low in terms of usage, and so maybe that could be a function of this. And the other time is July 4th weekend, it's dead again. And so I've, I've picked up on this, I've picked up on these things where it's like, \"Hey, the Americans aren't home,\" basically. And so you'll see that in the network. And so, yes, so at this time, I'm probably, okay, fine, yeah. but it also could also mean that there, people are being onboarded onto ETFs or onto MSTR, and, you know, they're doing the, the bidding for us, and or, or maybe people are just leaving it on exchange, like massive amounts are, are being left on exchange, and so we're not seeing that hit on chain yet. And so when people learn, hopefully, then they'll come back to this podcast, the start of it, the hardware wallet section and the, the, the key section, and they'll go through that whole process. So I think it Does it surprise me that one sat per byte is clearing? No, because I've, I've, I've picked that from a while ago. Right," }, { "speaker": "btc_sessions_k3tan", "time": "01:04:18", "start": 3858.39, "text": "Ben? Yeah. Yeah. I, I think, it's indicative of a few things, and I, and I, I wanna kind of toss back to the environment, let's say at the peak of the 2017 run. we had Basically no infrastructure in place to help with fee spikes and, and lots of usage. And so back then, it was, we didn't have SegWit, so it was all legacy addresses, or we, we did, but it wasn't very people using it anywhere. All of the wallets had horrible fee estimation. There was, you couldn't like bump fees or anything like that. It was just like whatever you sent, and no lightning? Yeah, yeah, lightning was, was but a twinkle in some developers' eyes. There was, and on top of that, all of the exchanges were horribly inefficient with their on-chain, like nobody was batching, every withdrawal was an individual transaction, which sounds like insanity. And so I remember paying a hundred and fifty dollars for a transaction fee in December of twenty seventeen, and that's with the price at twenty K. And so now-- But that would be on the extreme end, to be fair, yeah. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It was extreme, but like, it, it was partly because my wallet was so ill-equipped to deal with fees, like I didn't have a, even The choice of fees, I couldn't even set the fee, it defaulted to the most efficient next block fee. So, so that's kind of the environment we were in. Flash forward to today, one, exchanges are, are cognizant and batching and, and doing all that kind of stuff. Two, K3tan's right, like it's, it can-- and Stephan, you're right, it can indicate the type of people that are buying at the current time. There's a ton of people that are buying and going in through ETFs or MicroStrategy or- Or leaving stuff on exchanges, especially that last one, we need to teach more people how to self-custody and encourage it. But three, when people do withdraw and use it and have it in mobile wallets and they're transacting, more people doing that stuff are using Lightning wallets for day-to-day Bitcoin transactions. So you've got kind of this trifecta of things that have limited on-chain, plus it's just quiet around this time, as K3tan said too, you know? And I think the most bullish thing is that nobody- Gives a shit about ordinals right now, so that's great." }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "01:06:35", "start": 3995.52, "text": "Yeah, that's a great point. Alright, well, yeah, we've covered a lot of stuff, but, yeah, we've spoken about wallets, we've spoken about nodes, we've spoken about merchants. Hopefully, people have gotten some ideas on, how to go about things. Of course, things are gonna evolve, right? Even in six months from now or one year from now, this'll be out of date, so maybe we'll have to do another one, then. But," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:07:03", "start": 4023.06, "text": "yep. So you can find me at ministryofnodes dot com, and if you'd like to purchase a Bitcoin node, it's dot au, right? no, the dot au, it goes to dot au automatically. So ministryofnodes dot com will forward over to ministryofnodes dot com dot au, and you can also purchase at shop dot ministryofnodes dot com as well. And if you want to find me on Twitter, ministryofnodes, as well as underscore k3t a n, right? And Ben?" }, { "speaker": "btc_sessions_k3tan", "time": "01:07:26", "start": 4046.82, "text": "Awesome. yeah, I mean BTC Sessions, I'm on Twitter and Nostr, should be pretty easy to find me there. And then you can also find me through my company, Bitcoin Mentor, so bitcoinmentor.io, and that's kind of all like one-on-one helping people through their self-sovereignty and then their Bitcoin stack." }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "01:07:49", "start": 4069.76, "text": "Fantastic. Well, thanks guys for joining me." }, { "speaker": "btc_sessions_k3tan", "time": "01:07:52", "start": 4072.27, "text": "Thanks, Scott." } ] }