Ungovernable Misfits

Looking through Ben’s GitHub you begin to appreciate how voracious his creative energy is – meeting him IRL more than confirms these suspicions. I first met him in the backyard of the inaugural 2019 Lightning Conference in Berlin. I was admittedly fueled with limitless, practically free beer from the Lightning Beertap but Ben was brimming with limitless Celtic zeal. He’s a juggernaut of ideas, a self-taught, self-styled, dirty hacktivist who throws his considerable talent and charm into bleeding edge Lightning hardware and OpenSource projects.   "The #1 issue people have with BTC is volatility but with LN just used as a payment rail that doesn’t even matter. No matter what happens, LN is here to stay. " Ben Arc   Ben’s always been interested in computers and perhaps in another life he’d have had a more computer based background but that wasn’t the case and he’s glad for it. Instead he had a very rewarding 15 year career as a Design & Technology teacher in Wales, sometimes covering lessons in Electronics too. He specialised in teaching kids with severe behavioural difficulties in special needs classes. Electronics was particularly kinaesthetic and both he and the kids got a real buzz out of those early tinkering projects. For many of his kids, soldering electronics was the one thing that made them sit still. Ben developed a rudimentary understanding of electronics and computing, spinning up WordPress sites and PHP plugins. The unit where he worked was hit hard by UK economic austerity policies and his services got the squeeze. As disheartening as this clearly must have been it provided him an opportunity to take some time off and pursue his increasing curiosity into tinkering & hacking.   "Bitcoin can & will reduce the power of the State over people by taking away their control over monetary supply." Ben Arc   The first Bitcoin event he attended was a Maker centric Lightning Hackday in Berlin and like a kid in a candy store, the QR code Sweet Machine caught his attention the most. You could scan the screen’s QR code and go to a website, pay a LN invoice and sweets would come out of the machine. He saw the potential benefits for the machine itself not to be a full node but rather a secondary device for a full node. So he started playing around with microcontrollers, generating invoices on the machine’s screen and things began snowballing. In a way every LN project he’s done since has been an offshoot from this Sweet Machine concept.   "The word ‘hack’ literally comes from hacking away at a keyboard to make software/hardware eventually do something useful." Ben Arc   He began to have the opportunity to work on original projects most days, in a sense whatever he wanted. So he sat down and started making stuff, tinkering. One of his first Lightning software projects he made was the Sinclair Faucet using LN-URL. It allowed QR codes to be programmed with value and withdrawal frequency, printed or displayed and drained by people scanning it using their mobile LN wallets. RustyRussel is now building something akin to this into Lightning’s protocol level with Bolt12.org. It’ll enable static but private LN QR codes – groundbreaking stuff and in direct lineage of Ben’s tinkering.   "Bitcoin needs to be safe & conservative software. But over time, all the fun stuff will come. We’ve just gotta be patient.” Ben Arc   The first Lightning hardware project he made was a modified Sweet Machine which then evolved into a basic POS device for a bar. He discovered the M5Stack and it’s faces kit with a keypad and screen built into a handheld unit. He piloted it at Room77, Berlin’s infamous Hacker Bar, where it received some battle testing with a tonne of transactions. It stood up well. Next he plugged in a coin acceptor, created LN faucets and made a LN ATM device. It needed admin access to a wallet, to spend from a wallet essentially. This conundrum birthed his realisation that LN would benefit from a piece of middleware software that connected to common backend funding sources like LNDhub, BlueWallet, Raspiblitz, Umbrel & OpenNode. These were the sources currently funding ATMs. His unifying solution to this issue led to a project whose implications are only now emerging – LNBits.   LNBits recently received a grant from the Human Rights Foundation of 25 million sats to recognise it’s empowering contribution to Free Open Source Software development. In essence, it allows users to quickly spin up something akin to a Lightning server, connect it to a funding source and generate multiple wallets via a simple GUI. Each wallet has users and its own API keys which can connect to devices like an ATM. The innovation is that each wallet and device only has access to the set amount of funds within its own wallet. LNBits manages this as the middleware that sits on top of principle funding sources and reduces their exposure risk.   "LNBits came from making a LN ATM, hitting the stumbling block of needing multiple wallets & seeking the simplest, most interoperable, native Lightning software solution." Ben Arc   It came from necessity rather than any divine intervention or genius, he says, but perhaps the best ideas always do. I have the sneaky suspicion LNBits is going to snowball alongside growth of Lightning itself into something far more than people realise right now. Already it’s begun integrating a wealth of plugins including a LN Spotify Jukebox, paywalls, livestreaming, ticketing and POS systems.   "We have >20 extensions from many contributors so we need a WordPress plugin like library to catalogue them. " Ben Arc   HACKTIVIST SPIRIT   Ben’s never formally trained or worked as a Developer and continues to learn on the job, at conferences and Hackday events. He’s progressed by picking people’s brains. His character seems ideally suited to the job though, equal parts bright and inquisitive, humble and persistent. The skills he’s aggregated are opening doors into Lightning at a particularly exciting moment in it’s history. Perhaps it fate. He’s presenting at the Hacker Congress in Prague this month and at Adopting Bitcoin in El Salvador Nov 2021.   "Eventually in a Star Trek Utopia, we’ll have BTC as the interplanetary universal Medium of Exchange. I hope some of this weird sci-fi software & hardware will be useful to someone IRL, but if not, it’s fun anyway." Ben Arc   With his focus on grassroots, bottom-up, dirty hacking he’s opening the gates of OpenSource LN development to exactly the people who need it most. The cheapest hardware with the simplest LN software is precisely the niche that countries like El Salvador, Brazil, Laos, Nigeria and every other country that’s opening up to Bitcoin needs right now. He’s already helping stores, bars, salons and hairdressers in El Salvador set up cheap POS devices and LNBits stacks. This, ladies and gentleman, is how OpenSource money wins. "Ben’s the right man, in the right place, with the right skills, doing the right things. "   Selfbankt       Make sure to check out 21ism feature on Ben Arc and the brilliant article written by @selfbankt    21ism feature page - https://21ism.com/portfolio-item/ben-arc/   As always please feel free to reach out and ask me any questions.     Twitter - @arcbtc   Website - lnbits.com     Website - https://www.bit-buy-bit.com Twitter - @BitBuyBitPod Email - bit-buy-bitpodcast@protonmail.com

In todays episode I speak with the Co Founder of Bitcoin reserve and host of the Citadelium podcast Yuri de Gaia.    Citadelium is a show on rebuilding our civilisation by nurturing culture, tradition and morals while taking advantage of modern technologies, such as Bitcoin and the Internet. I was first made aware of the podcast after my friend Soulex and his son Soulexboy went on to discus the Meshtadel idea I love so much.    After speaking to Soulex, Yuri and others I truly believe we can build the Citadels/Meshtadels of the future.   I loved speaking with Yuri and I hope you enjoy listening.    twitter - @citadelium_   website - https://citadelium.com   As always please feel free to reach out and ask me any questions.   Website - https://www.bit-buy-bit.com Twitter - @BitBuyBitPod Email - bit-buy-bitpodcast@protonmail.com   Today you can exchange $1 for 1650  Sats (Sale ends soon.)    Thank you Foundation Devices for sponsoring the show.    Visit https://foundationdevices.com    Use code BITBUYBIT at check out for $10 off your purchase  

  Zach is the CEO and co founder of Foundation Devices, Mechanical engineer and Harvard MBA dropout. He discovered Bitcoin in 2013 and immediately grasped its potential as digital gold, a currency for the Internet, and a way to return sovereignty to individuals. Since we last spoke Zach and the team have designed and built the beautiful Passport, the new standard for Bitcoin security. Air-gapped architecture, fully open source and assembled in the USA.   We discus the process of creating the passport as well as how the team is growing and some future plans.    Zach was kind enough to send me one for testing a few months ago and I am very impressed. I set it up using @BitcoinQ_A guide bellow.   https://bitcoiner.guide/passport/   I always enjoy speaking to Zach and I'm happy to see such impressive FOSS development in the bitcoin space.      I hope you enjoy listening.    twitter - @zachherbert   website - https://foundationdevices.com   As always please feel free to reach out and ask me any questions.   Website - https://www.bit-buy-bit.com Twitter - @BitBuyBitPod Email - bit-buy-bitpodcast@protonmail.com   Today you can exchange $1 for 1752  Sats (Sale ends soon.)   Thank you Coinfloor for sponsoring the show. If you haven't signed up or bought Bitcoin then click the link below for 30% off Autobuy fees for 3 months. coinfloor.co.uk/BITBUYBIT  

I speak to Nick and Antomous about the Seed mint, a beautifully designed seed stamping kit and why/how its been made.    For a chance to win one click here  https://twitter.com/SeedMint21/status/1446829389048688645?s=20   To see the incredible 21ism feature on the Seed mint click here  https://21ism.com/portfolio-item/seedmint/     Twitter - @SeedMint21   Twitter - @antomousB     Website - https://www.bit-buy-bit.com Twitter - @BitBuyBitPod Email - bit-buy-bitpodcast@protonmail.com   Today you can exchange $1 for 2089 Sats (Sale ends soon.) Thank you Coinfloor for sponsoring the show. If you haven't signed up or bought Bitcoin then click the link below for 30% off Autobuy fees for 3 months. coinfloor.co.uk/BITBUYBIT

Bitcoin Monthly Update with Bitcoin Q+A and Antomous.    This episode marks the 9th of a new monthly series where we have a discussion about the last month in Bitcoin. We base our conversation on his website bitcoinmonthly.news (http://bitcoinmonthly.news/) which acts as an index for those that want to stay up to date with what really matters in the space.    This month we cover the latest developments from the likes of Bitcoin Core, Electrs and Foundation devices. We also chat about Sparrow Wallet's latest release containing Whirlpool coinjoin functionality!   Finally, we answer some of your questions, so be sure to keep an eye on next month's release and get your questions in. As always please feel free to reach out and ask me any questions.   Twitter - @BitcoinQ_A Twitter - @antomousB   Website - https://www.bit-buy-bit.com (https://www.bit-buy-bit.com/) Twitter - @BitBuyBitPod Email - bit-buy-bitpodcast@protonmail.com   Today you can exchange $1 for 1849 Sats (Sale ends soon.) Thank you Coinfloor for sponsoring the show. If you haven't signed up or bought Bitcoin then click the link below for 30% off Autobuy fees for 3 months. coinfloor.co.uk/BITBUYBIT

Stand  Stack  Build  Twitter - @poorbengunn   Website - https://www.bit-buy-bit.com Twitter - @BitBuyBitPod Email - bit-buy-bitpodcast@protonmail.com   Today you can exchange $1 for 2089 Sats (Sale ends soon.) Thank you Coinfloor for sponsoring the show. If you haven't signed up or bought Bitcoin then click the link below for 30% off Autobuy fees for 3 months. coinfloor.co.uk/BITBUYBIT

Meshtadel   Please check out   https://www.citadel21.com/meshtadel  So how would you… During a well needed holiday and in aspiration to increase critical thinking, two people, father and son (called SoulexBoy and Soulexporter) came up with the Mindadel — a simple mind game starting with the question: “So how would you...” The idea of the Mindadel is to philosophise on different scenarios. Anything is possible, everything goes, but that means that each (more or less realistic) argument can be met with a similar counterargument. While playing this game with the simple subject “So how would you start building your Citadel”, the game became a lot more serious.   Exploring scenarios Several scenarios were discussed over the consecutive days. How to save Ben Gunn from a totalitarian coup by the Church of fiat in the UK? How to defend Citadel Island? (In this scenario some very wealthy Bitcoiners had bought up Cyprus) The solution amounted to Stackmore convincing half the Turkish Maritime Force into joining us instead of attacking us.  A lot of Strategies and Tactical situations were explored between the two of us.  Strategy is putting down the long-term goals and how to achieve them. Tactics are much more concrete. Oriented toward smaller steps. Tackle specific situations that come up along the way to the goal outlined in your strategy.   Bitcoin Plebs often talk about the meme-like Citadel when thinking about Strategy. A safe haven of self-providing and self-sovereignty, alone or with like minded people. We both love to see (and talk with) Bitcoin Plebs that are building in that direction in their own way. Some just stack Sats, others are creating a business, others just try to be more independent in their food production and so on. So the one scenario we wanted to dive deeper into, started with the Strategy scenario: “So how would you start a citadel?” The physical aspect, the building of a place where we truly can be Sovereignabitches, but also withstand any (theoretical) adversary, even state players. The fun part with the Mindadel game is that, since we are hypothesizing about the future, we can change the fictive past, correct the first actions taken. It’s possible to mind-raise any capital needed, such as in the scenario where we bought Cyprus. IRL my stack isn’t big enough to buy a parking spot, still work in progress. :) The  first idea Soulexboy came up with was to build a physical Citadel with a bunch of people. A one-man citadel is not really feasible, the walls would have to be manned, food production overseen and so on. So we dove into a whole social analysis of how such a cooperation could work out. It was a fun exercise, but once adversaries started to show up in the equation, things started to change dramatically. As fictive adversaries kept appearing, the defenses and architecture changed frequently. The evolution went from a portcullis to a reinforced fortress built into a mountain. But however well built our defences, we quickly saw how even with an unlimited budget, a Citadel in hostile territory quickly escalated to an arms race. Since you have to plan for the worst and hope for the best, the worst quickly becomes a country turning upon the Citadel. We concluded that any country can always mobilize more (military or police) power than whatever budget a private entity could generate. This didn’t keep SoulexBoy from thoroughly enjoying thinking up strategic elements and weapons, but unless you can count on help from other states, a Citadel (small or even the size of a whole community) does not really stand a chance in defending itself using force. Being the tactician in this game, SoulexBoy explained that there are, according to him, 4 different important warfare strategies/tactics:  Blitzkrieg (offensive) Hit and hide (offensive) Guerilla / Asymmetrical (defensive) Trench warfate / Attritional (defensive) Since we want to live our life in peace, we were only looking at the defensive strategies/tactics.   Trench warfare Putting all the Plebs in a centralized location, even if it was an island, ends up in a type of trench warfare. A battle of attrition, where the defenders can be outclassed, outnumbered and even starved. Also, no matter how we planned it out, when you are a minority, you might not like democracy.    The Guerilla Approach “Guerrilla tactics focus on avoiding head-on confrontations with enemy armies, instead of engaging in limited skirmishes with the goal of exhausting adversaries and forcing them to withdraw. Guerrilla groups often depend on the logistical and political support of either the local population or foreign backers who do not engage in an armed struggle but sympathize with the guerrilla group’s efforts. Guerrilla warfare is a type of asymmetric warfare: competition between opponents of unequal strength. It is also a type of irregular warfare: that is, it aims not simply to defeat an enemy, but to win popular support and political influence, to the enemy’s cost. ” — Wikipedia We took four main points into consideration when discussing this approach. 1. Bitcoiners are scattered around the world A lot of us feel alone in our Housadels (Forgive us, we -del’d everything in our game.) Our own small place we occupy in the world, be it an apartment, a house or even a big estate. Unless you have a whole bunch of plebs nearby, the chances are you feel out of tune in your personal meatspace. Some Bitcoiners are preppers or gun fanatics, heck some might have a small armory, able to fend off a mob. But even that wouldn’t last long against a bigger, organized force. 2. Big enough area Our planning for strategies and tactics means that we are in a state of defense against physical attacks. This defense has to protect our daily life, not define it. We don’t have a standing army and we have lives to live. If we grow our own food, that food would have to be grown on a big farmland, and/or employ technical equipment such as aquaponics/hydroponics. How is it possible to both protect and maintain this? Short version: it is hard when you’re alone. 3. Don’t be where an attacker expects you to be This is a bit of a scary one, but preppers know this: when SHTF you have an option to bug in or bug out. The Pleb with the armory might very well build his bug in bunker, but when WWIII breaks out in your backyard this might not be sufficient. Even when it is only a police force representing a corrupt regime, the chances that we would outlast a siege seems minimal. 4. Intermediary tactic Even if the Guerilla approach is the only tactic we considered between the two of us, we did recognize that this could only be an intermediary solution: all we want is to live in peace!      The Meshtadel So, after having discussed many strategies, we came to the conclusion that one centralized location is good, but only when its size is big enough to sustain a high strategic advantage. It became apparent that we needed to come up with a system where decentralized tactics are used. We needed more and smaller citadels, connected like a mesh network! And thus, the Meshtadel was born. The Meshtadel was the next logical step for our housadels scattered around the world, the smallest unit of a Citadel, a Bitcoin household. We realized: When the walls you erect around yourself for protection are built because of the fear planted in your mind, those walls form a prison and you hand the fear mongers the only key. Build bridges, not walls! Playing out some scenarios In our hypothetical game, a group of Bitcoiners decided to work together. Spread out over a whole region, each forming a back-up base for the others. In the scenario where there was a complete meltdown of society, some Housadels grouped together as a Streetadel, using tunnels to move from one house to another, to flee or help defend.  In a scenario where a whole country decided to prosecute all Bitcoiners, the quest for refuge played out over an even bigger distance, so ideally our Meshtadel consists of locations across national borders.  A third scenario involved a communal mountain base as a Bug-out destination. A cooperative buy of a holiday destination, where all of them passed by at some point in a normal year to spend their holidays and help build up their safe haven for whenever disaster would strike. Complete with a bunker system built in the mountain with aquaponics, and redundancy all over :)  We played out different scenarios, and for each scenario we were able to dive into the past to prepare the best Meshtadel for each of the situations. We had scenarios with little money and ones where we were Saylors.  For each of these Meshtadel scenarios we dove into strategies, tactics, architecture, food production, and even politics. Politics is not about how to make sure to get elected as leader, but rather how do you make sure that those who are in a Meshtadel can stay organized without a hierarchy?  Trust   This presented a perfect time to explain the concept of Dunbar’s number to SoulexBoy. It is only writing this article that we found a diagram, but it really calls to the concept of what we were thinking, so in all honesty we only now started using the labels Kin, Super Family, Clan or Tribe. Ideally, a Meshtadel reaches a maximum of 150 people. If the population is getting close to that number, Clans or Super families should decide for themselves if they would like to start a tribe on their own, or with another group of plebs. Splitting up is not saying goodbye forever. Meshtadels would still interact with each other. Some Meshtadels could just be Clans. Each group of people that wants to form a Meshtadel, would make up their own rules or agreements. In the end it all comes down to the level of trust.  The further you move away from the Core Relationships, towards the Casual Relationships the less trust there will be. Trust is extremely important, because this is where the first three point we mentioned earlier come together: Bitcoiners are scattered around the world—> This is why we want to organize Big enough area—> Apparent from previous point, Bitcoiners are all over the world Don’t be where an attacker expects you to be—> With sufficient trust, you can leave your home behind when the need arrives, and flee to another trusted place in the Meshtadel. “But why not just unite and fight?” you might ask. Well, in our reasoning because of two reasons: We established it earlier: A single place of defence will become a prison if facing a ‘big’ attacker. Even if you could win the first few confrontations, any violence (even in self-defence) will turn the narrative against you if the masses don’t understand your reasoning.    Intermediary tactic  The long term goal is to gain the support of a critical mass of the total population. If enough people see that Bitcoin is as peaceful as it gets in the long run, some nations could become friendly/supportive enough to create a Bitcoin safe haven. But what happens if all hashing power and tons of Bitcoiners are located in the same place. This would be an ideal target for... well let’s call it an “accident with fertilizer”, a “misplaced EMP” or an “oopsie with the nuclear launch codes”. (Yes, we ran into this scenario in our Mindatel game) To be honest, we consider ourselves already in a state of war, but not with conventional weapons. We are fighting for the moral high ground. Fighting with memes, Medium articles and Twitter threads. We leave those battles for the Toxic Maximalists, the Nic Carters, in short those with a smoother pen than ours. But any guerilla tactic should make sure to not lose any foothold in these areas.  A good example is the boobie traps the Vietcong used in Vietnam. SoulexBoy described some of those in the defense discussions, and Soulexporter realized when hearing those stories that one of the strongest weapons in existence is the demoralizing factor. In a war where narrative and perception are the most important, violence should really be a last resort. For this reason our Meshtadel would be equipped with a well planned violence escalation. “Violence is almost never the answer, until it is the only answer...  then you go all in.” In the Mindatel we came up with “The Sniper Cameraman” which would thus be one of the newer military functions in a Meshtadel preparedness. :) Instead of snipers taking out people (as evil as they might or might not be), a Sniper Cameraman would make sure to document any violent act committed towards the peaceful Meshtadel. So when the moment that violence does become the only answer, the narrative cannot so easily be turned against us.   Conclusion  Although these dramatical scenarios are fun to ‘play out’, I hope we will never have to put them to practice. It is better to have an option it turns out you never need, than needing an option it turns out that you never had.  Do we all have to instantly set up a bug out plan with pleb locations mapped out? No, not necessarily, but we should start building our Meshtadels. Real life connections to fellow plebs. You can start building on your circular economy mini-network. Make a chain of trust. When you get to know a pleb with whom you feel like finding a long lost friend, your base for your Meshtadel is set. We are busy building our own mini-network of pleb…

Bitcoin Monthly Update with Bitcoin Q+A, Brother Rabbit and Antomous.    This episode marks the 8th of a new monthly series where we have a discussion about the last month in Bitcoin. We base our conversation on his website bitcoinmonthly.news which acts as an index for those that want to stay up to date with what really matters in the space.    This month we cover the latest developments from the likes of Passport and Seed Signer. We also chat about new releases from Blockstream and discus mining off grid.    Finally, we answer some of your questions, so be sure to keep an eye on next month's release and get your questions in. As always please feel free to reach out and ask me any questions.   Twitter - @BitcoinQ_A Twitter - @antomousB Twitter - @BrotherRabbit_   Website - https://www.bit-buy-bit.com Twitter - @BitBuyBitPod Email - bit-buy-bitpodcast@protonmail.com   Today you can exchange $1 for 2186 Sats (Sale ends soon.) Thank you Coinfloor for sponsoring the show. If you haven't signed up or bought Bitcoin then click the link below for 30% off Autobuy fees for 3 months. coinfloor.co.uk/BITBUYBIT

    One of the things I get most stoked about when I look at the leaderless yet unstoppable growth of Bitcoin is the organic unity of minds that coalesce to bring new and exciting things into our reality. Unapologetically devoid of any central organising committee, but instead bound by the forcefield of Bitcoin’s core principles of value, freedom and decentralisation, I am repeatedly left in wonderment watching waves of new initiatives breaking all over the world, promising new and exciting capabilities that have never existed nor even been possible before. Like SeedSigner (the nym – who we will now refer to as “SS” for the purpose of this brief article) and his creation of the SeedSigner (the project) – an open-source Bitcoin signing device developed to reduce the cost and complexity of executing multisig Bitcoin transactions. Driven by the proverbial mother of all invention, SS had been considering for some time how he could improve the security of his long-term Bitcoin holdings. Unhappy with his solution at the time – based on using Bitaddress.org to create wallets & private keys and then Shamir sharing/key sharding to add an additional layer of security – he was searching for something better.   "You start to wonder – as the gains happen – about your security setup. I wanted to get my security setup right, and multi sig was getting to the point where it was starting to be accessible to people”   When he became aware of the concept of multisig, I suspect he probably didn’t realise what a rabbit hole he’d stumbled upon. Tuning into an episode of the Stephan Livera Podcast with Michael Flaxman, he heard Flaxman describe a means to “10x your Bitcoin security” using new multisig via tools like Specter Desktop. The legions of Specter fans out there (and those of you who peeped our previous feature with key contributor Ben Kaufman) will already be aware that their excellent open-source repo not only contains the blueprints for its multisig wallet software, but a DIY hardware wallet build too. With his natural inclinations towards techie tinkering and 3D printing sufficiently piqued, SS figured he’d take a shot at putting a unit together to try out for himself. The experience, in short, blew his mind.   "The first time I signed a transaction with multisig, I can only compare it to the first time I sent a Bitcoin transaction or the first time I ever sent a lightning transaction; it was this magical lightbulb moment" SS   It was the start of something. When Flaxman subsequently tweeted about how cool it would be to have a neat enclosure to tidy up the loose parts and wires of his self-assembled Specter device, SS responded in the best way he knew and knocked-up a prototype for him. With Specter’s innards now neatly stuffed inside a perfectly formed 3D-printed case, Flaxman described the experience of using it as a game changer: “You go from dangling loose wires to a securely mounted professional (enough) device with NO SOLDERING”.   "For me, it was kind of a game to see how low I can drive the price down to get this basic signing functionality; where people can use the device to create private keys and then set up a wallet and actually transact with the Bitcoin network" SS   Buoyed by the experience, the pair started talking about using a much cheaper, stripped-down Pi ‘Zero’ and small Waveshare LCD which could be used as an air-gapped device for calculating the 24th (checksum) word in a seed. SS then decided to add a camera to the unit which would allow users to scan QR codes and sign transactions, turning it into a fully-functional transaction signing device that fundamentally does the same job as the Specter HWW but with some of its more high-end bells & whistles stripped out. In doing so, the price point (and physical size) could be reduced, allowing far more people to access the unit’s seed-generation, seed-import and transaction signing capabilities. And with that, the SeedSigner was born. With cheap and widely available off-the-shelf components, SeedSigner now provides a naturally inexpensive, open-source, air-gapped signing system which carries a higher degree of security assurance than some of the more high-end, network-attachable devices. But why would anyone want an inexpensive signing device that you can assemble yourself using innocuous doodads sourced from any major electronics store, I hear you ask? Well, for starters, go and speak to any Ledger customer. A hack of Ledger’s customer records database sadly compromised tens of thousands of customers’ private data, including names, physical addresses and emails, reportedly causing a great deal of stress and countless threats and scam attempts being made on many of them. The whole episode, and the fallout since, has served as an important reminder that privacy is a one-way street, that private data has value, and that once your info is out there it is hard (if not impossible) to claw back. Thus being able to get your hands on a secure, fully-functional Bitcoin signing device without having to disclose any personal contact information is a great thing.   Secondly, when generating or entering your seed on a regular network-connectable HWW/signing device, you are placing some level of trust in the firmware developer that they have not introduced an exploitable backdoor. It might not be a worry shared by everyone, but if you are like me and have little capability to meaningfully audit code yourself, having a fully air-gapped solution like SeedSigner that has no network-attachability and which solely references visible QR codes is a welcome assurance that backdoors are unlikely.   "Something we’ve explored is having either a setting or a default mode where, when you first turn the device on, it brings up a snake or a Pac Man-type game" SS   "I personally have a bunch of multisig setups, but I’m pretty sure one SeedSigner is going to replace all my current hardware wallets. Especially for my backup cosigners – no need to keep buying those backup hardware devices" Keith Mukai   Then there’s the fun stuff. The fresh perspectives and problem solving skills that SS and project contributor Keith Mukai and Newtonick bring to the mix in their development of SeedSigner are leading to some really cool micro-innovations and UX approaches.   A favourite of mine which they came up with recently is their introduction of a QR code transcription template & workflow. You see, with there being no retained storage capability on the device, each time users boot up the Seed Signer, they are forced to enter their seed anew. But with most seeds comprising 24 words, it can take a few minutes to enter them using the joystick and button controls as users scroll through the words on the device’s small screen.   So they came up with an ingenious way to firstly give users the ability to generate a QR-version of their chosen seed words on the device itself, and secondly to then walk them through the transcription of the code onto a piece of paper using a felt-tip pen (analog FTW!). What this compellingly low-tech workflow gifts to users is the ability to scan the hand-drawn (and therefore air-gapped) QR-code back into the device via the camera instead of manual entry whenever the user wants to sign a transaction. Now who wouldn’t want to give that a spin?! Not me, is who!   "A big turn around for the project was when Nick and Keith came in. Nick forked the original repo and then rewrote the whole code base to lay the groundwork for where we are today. Keith is hugely creative, especially on the UI side, and has brought some awesome new feature ideas to the project. They collaborate really well – there’s a bit of ying & yang between them" SS   When experimenting with the concept, they found that QR codes are remarkably resilient and very forgiving in how neatly the codes need to be when hand-drawn – a boon for anyone with messy handwriting. Who knew? And if you’re worried about your QR code paper copy falling into the wrong hands accidentally, then the solution to that is the same as you would use to protect your seed words properly – robust, secure physical storage and employment of a passphrase. Boom. Risk mitigated. And last but not least, there’s the price point. $50 for an air-gapped multisig transaction signing device that allows you to create or import your own seed, export an xpub, sign your transactions in a safe and secure manner and essentially kickstart your sat stacking journey without any 3rd parties knowing about it? As Keith Mukai explained to me, you now have the ability to use one piece of cheap hardware to sign for basically infinite keys – which is a big deal for anyone who might not want to drop hundreds of dollars for several name-brand HWWs. This opens up the option for a family or even, say, a small El Salvadoran village to be able to share one device amongst themselves. Cypherpunk af!   "[At first] I just kind of tinkered with it – you’re kind of scratching your own itch, and just trying to bring something that you want to see into existence" SS   So if you’ve been flirting with the idea of trying multisig quorum set-ups for yourself but have hesitated because of cost concerns or complexity worries with more established hardware wallet vendors, I suggest you try these bad boys out. And if you’re way ahead of me on this and keen to contribute some help to this awesome project, the team would love to hear from you. Now that the overall code structure has been established, they are iterating and making improvements where they see the need and also seeking contributors to create walkthroughs/tutorials on building and using SeedSigner and technical users who can help to test new features and upcoming releases. If you liked this primer, be sure to check out Max’s audio interview above and give the Seed Signer guys a follow on Twitter @SeedSigner, @KeithMukai and @Newtonick. SeedSigner’s website: www.seedsigner.com SeedSigner’s cases: https://btc-hardware-solutions.square.site/ SeedSigner’s Github: https://github.com/SeedSigner Seed Signer’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNubamOe37-UQYt5sbaRmOg       Make sure to check out 21ism feature on Seed signer and the brilliant article written by @mtcbtc    21ism feature page - https://21ism.com/portfolio-item/seed-signer/   As always please feel free to reach out and ask me any questions.     Twitter - @SeedSigner     Website - https://www.bit-buy-bit.com Twitter - @BitBuyBitPod Email - bit-buy-bitpodcast@protonmail.com   Today you can exchange $1 for 2117 Sats (Sale ends soon.) Thank you Coinfloor for sponsoring the show. If you haven't signed up or bought Bitcoin then click the link below for 30% off Autobuy fees for 3 months. coinfloor.co.uk/BITBUYBIT

This episode marks the fifth of a new monthly series with the aim of exploring with other Bitcoiners the skills needed to be self sovereign. Each episode we welcome new guests and discus new topics. Going forward we will also try to answer any questions listeners might have, so be sure to keep an eye on next month's release and get your questions in.    Since recording individual episodes with @soulexporter and @capoczino we kept in touch and I am very happy to now call them friends. The idea for this show was thought up after we found out we had similar dreams and feel we are not alone, we want to help build a community who help each other become free.    Todays guests are soulexboy and @soulexporter   Please reach out to us with suggestions for guests or ideas to help us all move forward together.    I really enjoyed recording this and I hope you enjoy listening.    twitter - @soulexporter   As always please feel free to reach out and ask me any questions.   Website - https://www.bit-buy-bit.com Twitter - @BitBuyBitPod Email - bit-buy-bitpodcast@protonmail.com