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THE Bitcoin Podcast
CENSOR THIS PODCAST: NOSTR & BITCOIN VS TOTALITARIANISM | Will Casarin (jb55)
01:33:14
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- [00:00]
Will Castron (JB55)
Just imagine if you were the first person to discover the properties of gold and like, and no one else could, like, like, oh, it's just like this malleable metal that's like, why would you want to use that? It's kind of like useless. It's a very fortunate time. Everyone who is like, not partaking or at least like looking into it or at least learning about it, you're doing yourself a huge disservice because it's like the, the best. This is the most unique time. Think of like, at cosmological scales, like, what's the earth like 4.7 billion years or something? And like, we're at this one moment in time where we create this technology that is perfect scarcity, mathematical scarcity based off the laws of physics. And, and you're here at this point in time. It's like, and you think it's a scam. Can you talk about the biggest fumble of your, like, entire existence? I can't think of anything more important to be doing other than building on bitcoin. It's Nothing else seems as important. I have like, this like, really anti, like, authoritarian thing. I think it was driven by that, like, trauma experience as a kid. Just like always being told to get off my computer when I was like, that's all I want to do. So, yeah, so when Apple's telling me did that, I can't do something, I'm like, I want to burn you to the ground. Now my number one focus is to, like, build around you. I always say, like, a conversation at a bar is the most decentralized thing you can do. It's like completely peer to peer, doesn't require any centralized architecture infrastructure, no cloud involved. You're just having a beer with someone. So I think what we're doing, what peer to peer technology, is simply restoring that human thing we've been doing for hundreds of thousands of years. So I think it's worthwhile.
- [01:28]
Walker America
Greetings and salutations, my fellow plebs. My name is Walker and this is the Bitcoin podcast. Bitcoin continues to create new blocks every 10 minutes. The value of one bitcoin is still one bitcoin. And if you're listening to this right now, remember, you are still early. If you're not already, go ahead and subscribe to this show wherever you're watching or listening, and share it with your friends, family and strangers on the Internet. If you want to follow me in the show on NOSTR and X, just head to the show notes to grab the links. If you're enjoying the bitcoin podcast and want to support it by becoming a paid subscriber. You can can download the Fountain app, search for the Bitcoin podcast and subscribe. By paying with Bitcoin via Lightning or Fiat via Card, you'll get access to ad free episodes and early releases of select content. Plus you'll help support this show. Head to the Show Notes for product discount links. Go to walkeramerica.substack.com to get episodes emailed to you and head to bitcoin podcast.net for everything else. Walker without further ado, let's get into this bitcoin talk. Uncle Jim 21 on Noster. He built a tool called Pull that Up Jamie.
- [02:46]
Will Castron (JB55)
Oh, really?
- [02:47]
Walker America
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's pretty sweet. So like he walked me through it and I met him in dc. We just got to chatting and it was like one of those things where, you know, you're chat with someone. It's like, oh, you know, like what do you do around the old bitcoin space? And he's like, oh, like, or this and that. And like I built this like thing called Pull out of Jamie. I'm like, no way. Like, I kept seeing Marty Bent using this all the time, but it's basically like a, a place for you to. It'll automatically archive your podcast episodes and then allow you like, it'll automatically like creates like lo fi clips for you. It does all the stuff that I can publish to nostr straight from it, you know, does other like summaries and stuff. So it's like, it's pretty sweet. But the name like, it's Pull that Up Jamie AI. And it's like, that's, that's just that, that, that's a great, that's a great sighting.
- [03:33]
Will Castron (JB55)
When I like when I hear that, I just assume it's like an air agent that's like replicates Jamie like during the podcast and you can just ask it to like pull stuff up. I think that'd be cooler.
- [03:42]
Walker America
Honestly, Jim, if you're listening to this, that would be pretty sweet. Like that. That's honestly, like, yeah, I need to be able to basically like have an assistant that's listening that I can just kind of vibe chat with to be like, so like pull that up Jamie. And they could pull that up during.
- [03:57]
Will Castron (JB55)
I can just do like web searches like instantly. It'd probably be way faster than Jamie.
- [04:01]
Walker America
So honestly, like I could probably do that like with, with chatgpt or like with Grok at this point. But the problem is that like I Feel like a lot of those times those conversations will time out. Um, it would also just keep like trying to talk to you. Like if, you know you, you need to like have it like set up. So it had that trigger word of like pull that up, Jamie, and then you, then you'd probably be good to go. But. But yeah, I'm also. I want to give it another shout out. I want to give a shout out to, to Ben Justman because he sent me. We're. We're doing a. I'd call it a value for vino collaboration where basically it's like the coolest thing ever. Like, I'm just going to drink his wine on this show. Peony Lane wine, which is delightful, and he's going to send me wine to drink. And so like, that's like, honestly, like kind of awesome. And like, I think we need more of that.
- [04:47]
Will Castron (JB55)
One of my favorite, one of my favorite things is like having a like wine subscription every month. So if I could just like pay in sats to get wine delivered to my door every month, that'd be ideal.
- [04:58]
Walker America
I'm pretty sure Ben has.
- [05:00]
Will Castron (JB55)
They don't, they don't ship to, they don't ship to Canada. I asked him before.
- [05:05]
Walker America
That's your, that's your first problem.
- [05:07]
Will Castron (JB55)
We do have Privado, I think. I think they're on Noster as well, if that's how you say their name. So I should ask him actually.
- [05:16]
Walker America
Dude, I, I love, I love that the kind of small business marketplace aspect of Noster has. It feels like it's been like kind of taking off. I mean, like, it's still at a small scale, but like, there's, there's a lot of folks now that are using Noster as the way that they are like marketing their small business or even like taking orders. And I think that's a super, like, super great use case for this, especially if you can like literally take orders through a zap. Like, that's, that's pretty sweet.
- [05:43]
Will Castron (JB55)
It's probably one of the most important things for the long term success of like the zap economy, I've always called it. And like zap commerce. Because if you don't have people like actually using it for stuff day to day, then it's still just like a toy and it's fine as a toy. It's like, oh, you know, you know, you get drunk and you start tipping people on Noster like I do occasionally. But it's not like, that's not going to make like Zaps and Nostr succeed in the long run. So yeah, we definitely need those marketplaces to get going. And I was just talking to, I think it was like Telvadev, his name is in Portland and he's working on a lot of the shopster stuff, I think a lot of the marketplace stuff. And yeah, he really like, I'm like, I didn't realize there's so much stuff going on. So I'm really excited for that. They were doing like milk distribution of some kind because like sometimes it's hard to get like raw milk or it's like legal and you're part of the world. Like in Canada it's like illegal. Like in Canada we don't, we're not even allowed to have like medium rare burgers at restaurants. Like you have fentanyl on the street.
- [06:41]
Walker America
I don't know if that's a joke.
- [06:42]
Will Castron (JB55)
Or if it's not a joke. I'm not even joking.
- [06:44]
Walker America
Seriously?
- [06:45]
Will Castron (JB55)
Yeah, if you, if you Google it, you'll see Canada. You can't ask for a medium rare burger in a restaurant in Canada. But you can get like friggin fentanyl off the street. It's just most ridiculous. You can't get raw milk either. It's illegal.
- [06:57]
Walker America
Okay, that, that like, is there like a secret code word you can use if like you want a medium rare burger? So you tell them like, you know.
- [07:04]
Will Castron (JB55)
It'S just not in the culture. So like if people, if you were to ask that order at a restaurant, they'd be like, what do you mean? Like, it's just not like something that you do. It's just you just go get a burger and it's just like well done or something.
- [07:15]
Walker America
It's just like a piece of leather.
- [07:17]
Will Castron (JB55)
Leather? Yeah.
- [07:18]
Walker America
You know, I will say like, you know, I, who doesn't like to make fun of Canada, but I've made a lot of incredibly based bitcoin and Nostra friends that are Canadians such as yourself. Like, but like the countless numbers, like I feel so privileged because I never knew that many Canadians. Like, I could probably count the Canadians I knew on like both hands growing up. And then it's like now like I have a ton of Canadian friends and they're all super based. Obviously there's a selection bias there because they're bitcoin and noster people. But like, I think there's a lot of hope for Canada still, you know?
- [07:48]
Will Castron (JB55)
Yeah, I mean, I think we had a lot of the. I don't know, it just seems to be like a lot of like bitcoiner engineers are here. We I think we had the first bitcoin ATM in Vancouver, like, in the world. You know, obviously we have like, NVK's company. We have, you know, a lot, a lot of people like coin cards here in Vancouver. So, yeah, I don't know. There's a lot of cool Canadians. And yeah, we're actually having a. Yeah, yeah, we're actually having a conference tomorrow at the convention center in Vancouver. Tomorrow? Oh, maybe. Yeah, tomorrow or Saturday. So that's going to be fun. It's like one of the first, like, ones in Vancouver, which can be exciting.
- [08:21]
Walker America
Oh, that's sweet. I, like, I've only been to Canada a couple of times. I've, I've enjoyed it each time very much. But then, like, I, you know, it's like I'm just getting like a little, a little taste of it. I'm not seeing all the insanity that happens, you know, behind the scenes. Like, oh, it's like, so nice to visit. And then like, I come back and I read some ridiculous news story or I find out that you can't have a gosh darn medium rare burger and it's like, what the hell is this? What's this place coming to?
- [08:47]
Will Castron (JB55)
Yeah, freedom is just like much more suppressed here and it's kind of just been normalized. We don't really think about it, like, we don't have guns. We don't have like the freedoms that you guys have and. But people just like, go on with their lives. Oh, yeah. It's like you need to, you need to basically like get a yearly documentation, like recheck if they redo the test like every year or something. It's like, very annoying to have a.
- [09:06]
Walker America
Gun that's like, I mean, in Illinois we have to like, I'm originally from Wisconsin and there, I mean, you know, like, it's easier than in Illinois to get a gun, but it's still like, people who don't own guns in America like to act like you can just like walk into a store and you walk out with a gun. It's like, no, no, no. In most places, this is not the case. You walk into a store and you have a federal background check run on you and you probably can't leave with the gun like that same day. But like, in, in Illinois, you have to have a FOID card, Firearm Owner Identification card, and that like, expires after a certain point. Like, and it takes a while to get because it's the government. So, like, they just take a long time to issue anything. You got to, of course Pay for it. And it's, it's. I remember I was going to, I was going to buy a gun in Wisconsin once and I wanted to get just like another handgun. And I like had a great handgun picked out. I had exactly what I wanted. And, and then I go to the, you know, the cashier, I'm like, okay, you know, here's my id, you know, oh, Illinois let you know. Do you have your Floyd card? Yep. Okay, here it is. And this is the gun I want right here. And the guy's like, oh, no, I can't sell you, I can't sell you a handgun because you're an Illinois resident. I'm like, oh, but like, but you can sell, like, what do you mean I can buy a handgun in Illinois, like, but like he said, no, I can't sell you a handgun in Wisconsin. Like, what can I buy? He's like, well, you can buy any long gun. I'm like, so I can buy this semi automatic 12 gauge shotgun. This semi automatic 12 gauge maxis shotgun, which is what I ended up buying. He's like, yeah, that's fine. But it's like, so I like it just. These laws are so stupid because it's like, okay, I can't buy a small pistol, but I can literally buy a semi automatic 12 gauge shotgun which will leave multiple giant holes in you. Like that. But it's like, okay, good. Great job, government. You did it. You know, you kept, you kept us safe by making the law abiding people, making their lives absolutely hell. Because it's not like criminals have any problems getting illegal guns. You know, it's just, I digress, but it's just that kind of stupidity just is so infuriating to me.
- [11:05]
Will Castron (JB55)
I think the future is going to be, especially for us Canadians is like once 3D printing gets just so good and you can just like press a button and have a weapon and like don't have to tell anyone about it. Then it's like, I don't know, I just, I just kind of see that happening. Especially if governments keep on getting going down this crazy path that they're going. Especially with all the UK madness and I don't know, it's a scary place out there. Especially with bitcoiners who have been in bitcoin since 2010 and you've been massing bitcoin and preparing for the future and people I don't know. I'm at this point now where it's like, I used to be like a huge proselytizer of bitcoin I used to go tell everyone about it. Now it's kind of like maybe I should shut up and, and just like keep to myself and. Because you see all those like kidnappings and stuff happening and I don't know.
- [11:51]
Walker America
So many in France. So many kidnappings in France. Weirdly, like that seems to be the new place. Like if you wanna, if you wanna, if you wanna kidnap somebody and take their cryptocurrency.
- [12:02]
Will Castron (JB55)
Seems I would just target people who, like in places where there's no like weapons are outlawed. Right. You have less chance of getting shot.
- [12:08]
Walker America
Yeah, it's like you, if you want to do that to somebody in America, like you, like you're on the dice. That person has to get like, yeah, like I, you know, has like more than one gun, like there. Are you coming to my house? You're going to be met with a lot.
- [12:21]
Will Castron (JB55)
They're like, finally someone came into my house.
- [12:23]
Walker America
This is good.
- [12:24]
Will Castron (JB55)
Yeah, like I've been waiting for this.
- [12:25]
Walker America
I have literally been preparing for this. Like you have no idea what you just walked into. And now, you know, I get to. Well, yeah, it doesn't go well. Don't want to get banned from YouTube for saying, saying stuff about violence though, so.
- [12:39]
Will Castron (JB55)
Oh, sorry.
- [12:41]
Walker America
No, I'm just kidding. I don't give a shit actually. It's going to happen. And that's why I'm so glad NOSTR exists because we're live streaming this on Nostr to right now 88 people, which is nice. So shout out to everybody who is listening to this live on Nostr on Zap Stream. I want to get into a bunch of stuff with you, Will, because there's a lot to talk about. I want to talk about what you're building at Domus, what's new over there. I want to talk about. Honestly, maybe this is where we keep rolling into what's happening in the UK and how the Fiat Clown world is doing a very good job of making the case for why you would want Nostr and not just in the uk, obviously, but they're just one of the most absurd examples right now. Maybe we start with that. I also want to talk about generally growing Nostr and what people at the individual level can do as the user level versus what you think at the dev level needs to be done. Is this a solution with a technical or a technical solution or is this something that's more of just like, hey, adoption takes time, but maybe let's start. Okay, first of all, for anyone who doesn't know you, JB55, Will Castron you created DAMAs. This is your third time on the show, right? I think so.
- [13:56]
Will Castron (JB55)
I think so, yes.
- [13:57]
Walker America
Yeah. Welcome back. Third time's the charm.
- [13:59]
Will Castron (JB55)
Thank you.
- [14:00]
Walker America
Stoked to have you back. I've enjoyed every one of our conversations, both on the air here and in person. Just cause you brought it up. Let's talk about the UK a little bit. So like the. What is it? It's the Online Safety act is the one. Okay. Maybe we take a step back. All of these like online safety things, they all sound really like nice in theory where it's like, well, we just want to keep children safe. Like, don't you want to keep children safe? Like, don't like, because if you don't like, who's going to be like, no, I want children to be in danger. Like, you know, they put out these red herrings, these false flag operations that make it sound like, well, this is just about, you know, keeping children safe. And yet there are some other unintended consequences. But maybe they're actually totally intended. But like, how do you look at these, these things as they're, as they're playing out? Like, I feel like this is going to keep accelerating in places where people don't push back. And clearly in the UK there is not enough like actual pushback to this. Like, it seems kind of insane that people aren't like, I mean, they're up in arms but like not enough to make any difference apparently.
- [15:09]
Will Castron (JB55)
Yeah, it's. Wasn't it like 80% of people just like were like approved of the, of the whole thing.
- [15:14]
Walker America
Yeah.
- [15:16]
Will Castron (JB55)
So I don't even know how if that's true or if that's just like propaganda or. The one thing I don't understand is why is this all happening? It all tends to happen at the same time. I'm like, I'm not like a super conspiratorial person, but you know, sometimes you just like look at how things have played out. Especially like during the pandemic. It's almost like they're like testing to see how the population would react to certain things. And then, you know, and now they're like, okay, let's just try, let's just push again and see what happens. And it's just, that's what it feels like to me. It feels like they're just experimenting to see how people react as like a psyop. I don't know, maybe it's not as coordinated as that. Maybe they're legitimately. People are in, just in the government and they're like worried about Online safety. But I don't know, it just, it seems weird that it happens all at the same time and it's always like backed by corporate sponsors. And so obviously, you know, maybe the thing I think about is like follow the money, like who is profiting from this? You know, obviously having control of a lot of systems like, you know, gives certain people's advantages. I don't know, I think I haven't done like the deep analysis of like why it's happening. I just, I'm just like a passive observer and I'm like, okay, that's interesting. And for me I just see it as like a positive thing for me in terms of things I'm building some like showcasing. This is why I'm working on this stuff because we have to prepare for a future when this is going to actually going to happen. And it's like I didn't think it'd be happening this quickly, um, so I thought I would have a lot more time to like build out and like get everything ready. But if they want to fast track it then fine and then I'll start, you know, working even harder. But it's, it's kind of crazy.
- [16:41]
Walker America
If you're getting a lot of zaps on Nostr for your fire memes or feet pics, you should probably get the majority of those sats into your own self custody by going to bitbox swiss/walker and using the promo code walker for 5% off the fully open source easy to use Bitcoin only bitbox02 hardware wallet. And while you're at it, get your Bitcoin off the exchange and into your own custody as well. Bitcoin is ripping and soon your stack will be worth a heck of a lot more in fiat value than it is today. So now is the perfect time to make sure you have your security locked down with Bitbox. And I really cannot emphasize enough that the Bitbox 02 is easy as hell to use whether you are brand new to bitcoin and it's your very first time setting up a hardware wallet. So you're understandably a little bit nervous or you are a well seasoned psychopath. Again, it's bitcoin only and fully open source. You can head to their GitHub and verify for yourself. No need to trust me or bitbox. When you go to Bitbox Swiss Walker and use the promo code walker, not only do you get 5% off, but you also help support this podcast. So thank you. It is insane and it's like, you know, I think like even orwell couldn't have conceived of how dystopian things would get in the UK so quickly like that. That's really like the sad thing. It's just like, and it's the absurdity of it too, right? It's just that like none of this stuff, it's like nobody thought through it that much or I guess there's two sides to it. Either nobody thought through it that much and genuinely are too stupid to realize all of the downstream implications of these terrible policies that ultimately restrict individual liberties under the guise of, you know, protecting children. Which, yeah, we all want to keep the kids safe, right? But like, yeah, there are, there are trade offs in things or like they, they literally know exactly what they're doing. They know that this is a, they're, you know, doing this in a deceitful way and they know that it's really just a tool of, you know, totalitarianism to try and restrict people's freedom of communication, freedom of expression. Like people are, I mean like the fact that you can just legitimately get arrested for a social media post in the UK is just nuts. Like, like that just right.
- [18:54]
Will Castron (JB55)
They'll come to your door and like knock on your door and arrest you. And I'm like, I've seen videos like that for, since like 10 years ago. Like they've been doing that for a while. It's kind of crazy.
- [19:03]
Walker America
You can't silently pray within like a certain distance of, of an abortion clinic. Like I think they literally, I'm forgetting the woman's name. There was like a 70 year old like you know, grandma who was literally just arrested for this. And like, like that's just, it doesn't matter how you feel about the issue of abortion. Like that, that is, that, you know, that does not matter. It's not the point here. The point is you should be able to silently pray. Like where, like that's not, like you're not hurting anyone. That's, that's you know, part of like free expression. But then it's like, well the UK just like doesn't really have that. Like they, they actually, they actually don't, they don't have something that's as, you know, that's you know, like the Constitution, the Bill of Rights. It's not that to that extent and like they're, they're paying the price for it. And I do think the fact that like you're not an, when you're not an armed population, the government feels a lot more free to come in and subjugate you and to do Ridiculous things like, because there's no. Like, what are you. What are you gonna do? They're making knives illegal in the uk. Like, there was a whole push to like only sell blunted knives. Did you see this? It was like. It was nuts because like. Cause shockingly, people are stabbing each other with knives because it turns out that even when you don't have guns, people still find ways to kill each other. Who would have thought? But like, I don't know, it's just like, it just. I think you're right. It just feels like they push more and more and more like, what can we get away with? What can we get away with now? But they're really making the case for why you would want a censorship resistant open protocol for communication. So like, at least there's that.
- [20:34]
Will Castron (JB55)
Yeah. And we have this idea in software, I guess not even software. It's just like in general, like engineering or maybe even more general. It's like Murphy's Law, right? If you set up the structure in ways that it can fail, it will fail just because inherently people who are not that smart get into these positions because those positions attract people who just are not there for an intellectual reason. They're there for power or money or greed. And those types of people just don't tend to be second order effect thinkers. I feel like some of the smartest people I know when they especially. This is a lot of bitcoiners too. When I talk to a lot of bitcoiners, you'll be like, oh, if I make this change to this now to the. Let's say to the protocol, what are the second order effects that are going to happen if I make this change? And the reason why it's so interesting, I find, to talk to bitcoiners is because they think like two or four or five or six, 10 steps down the road. And they like, no, we can't change the block size because of XYZ and all these implications. But the shitcoiners, they're like, they don't think two orders down the line. So they're just like, let's just make the blocks bigger and everything will be great. So I know, I just see it the same way where it could be like, you know, they're doing it for malicious reasons, but it's probably more likely just they're not thinking about the second order effects. And so, yeah, I don't know. It's. Who knows?
- [21:48]
Walker America
I think. Have you ever read the book the Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson?
- [21:54]
Will Castron (JB55)
No.
- [21:54]
Walker America
It's a great Book. It's a pretty short book too if you want. It's an enjoyable read. I think I read it a decade ago, but it's still very relevant. Basically it's 1% of the general population of people. So not people in prison? People in prison. This percentage is higher. But 1% of the general population are psychopaths, actual clinical psychopaths. It may be even a little bit higher than that. So 1 in 100 people that you meet is going to be a psychopath statistically like incapable of feeling empathy, like literally can't, can't do it, can't put themselves in your shoes and is just a narcissistic egomaniac who is also going to be really good at being charismatic and getting, you know, and probably pretty eloquent and good at getting what they want. And those people tend to gravitate towards positions of power because it's all about self aggrandizement. Right. And so I mean I would, I don't know what the percentage of psychopaths in politics is like in high offices of politics, but I'm guessing it's higher than 1%. Like I feel like it'd be a safe thing to bet that it's higher than gen pop. And so, but then it's like you're right. I think a lot of these people are just incredibly incompetent. So you've got this mix of like actually highly intelligent psychopaths and then super, just mid curve smooth brains and that's basically like. And that's government, you know, and they're. Okay then that's not entirely fair. And there are some bright spots of people who actually give a shit and are there because, you know, they want to change things and make them better for the next generation. But those people are in the tiny, tiny minority, sadly grateful they exist, but they're outnumbered, you know.
- [23:33]
Will Castron (JB55)
Yeah, well, this is why I've always like, somehow as Bitcoiners and as like people who are just like passive people, they're not, they don't crave power. They just want to like live peacefully somehow. I mean Satoshi, this is like Satoshi genius. He was able to like create the structure which fights against all of that power, against all of that coercion and all of that like force and they just, they did it in the most passive way possible. Just like writing code and just like putting it out there and, and now like we're winning. Like it's kind of crazy. And we're not even. We don't have to do any violence. Like, can you think of a more poetic and beautiful thing to like that's actually unfolding? It's just, it's amazing. Like, you just have to sit there and do nothing while like basically incentives drive human action into like proper, you know, into like healthy directions. It's kind of crazy if you think about.
- [24:26]
Walker America
Really is like it's, it's almost like, wow, like no way this would work right? But then it's like it's working right, right in front of our eyes. Like bitcoin is winning. And that's not to say that they're like, we don't need to remain ever vigilant and build out all of the kind of tangential solutions that are required to make sure that we can, you know, progress along that sovereignty spectrum as far as possible. But like at, at the, at the core level, like bitcoin is winning and that's, that's an. And we did it without needing to drone strike, you know, a bunch of brown kids, which is just amazing. Like you turn like, what a feature. This is crazy.
- [25:05]
Will Castron (JB55)
No drone strikes required.
- [25:07]
Walker America
They said it couldn't be done. They said you had to drone strike the Brown king.
- [25:10]
Will Castron (JB55)
US Military is like, what, What? What do you mean? Like, hold on, guys.
- [25:14]
Walker America
Completely changing the game.
- [25:15]
Will Castron (JB55)
This is, this is game.
- [25:17]
Walker America
Yeah. There's no way we should just drone strike a few brown kids just to, you know, just to be safe. Just for good measure on Bitcoin for the quota. Yeah. Yeah, man. It's, it's, it's nuts. I'm curious too. Like, how are you? Okay, how do you balance, as you were building on Nostr, how do you balance kind of the fuck the state freedom tech side of this with like, hey, I want to build a nice app with a pleasant user interface that encourages people to come and interact in a pro social way. Or are those two actually like two sides of the same coin and like by getting more people on the network, you achieve those other more like freedom minded goals. Do you think about that at all?
- [26:03]
Will Castron (JB55)
I don't think about it enough. I think I definitely like 99% think of like ways to fuck the state and to fuck people who are assholes. Like, so that's why sometimes I, like, it's kind of my flaw and like, I probably should focus more time on like. But that's why my team is really good. Like I have, you know, we've good designer. Roberto is a great designer. I got Daniel helping me with iOS. We have a whole like no tech team. We got Vanessa, Terry, like so many people are helping me now and like, and they, they care about those things. Especially Eric. Eric is really good. He's on the iOS team. He basically just makes it pretty and make it user friendly. So I'm, I'm just like, I don't know. If I didn't have those guys I feel like I would just be building like a lightning node into the, into the. Into the. Which I'm doing on Note Deck which I have a lightning node in there now.
- [26:51]
Walker America
But yeah, so talk about that a little bit. Like give us an update on like where you're at with Note Deck. What's happen happened recently with Domus. Like what have you guys been focusing on?
- [27:03]
Will Castron (JB55)
Yeah, I mean I saw everyone having too much fun with all the other stuff. So I'm like, well I want, I want to have fun too. And I, because I always, I always believe that though. I always believe that the other stuff is what's going to really convince the a large if anything like I don't think we're just going to convince them on a new social media experience because everyone's already oversaturated with social media and everyone's already on Twitter and other places. So the only thing that we're actually, that's going to work is that we attract like hey, you can. Do you use all these other software that all work together and like that's a pretty. That would be something you could use outside of just the social media use case. So you know, I built Domus iOS and it was great for like a Twitter like clone but you know, it's not like I'm going to start loading more and more features into that because it's, I'm just trying to keep that simple, try to keep easy to use. So just being able to have a platform where we can build new ideas quickly without being also being censored by the App Store or centered by Apple. Yeah, Apple and governments and stuff. I needed a new platform to be able to build my ideas in a, in a free way. So yeah, so that's what no tech is. It's a new multi, multi platform client I've been working on for like three years now. Not like full time three years, but probably more heavily in the past year. And one of the biggest focuses I've been working on the past four months is getting the Android version working. So I don't want to spoil it and I'm technically under contract so I can't say when. But I would say if you want to learn more, go to Bitcoin Asia at The end of the month.
- [28:26]
Walker America
Okay.
- [28:27]
Will Castron (JB55)
And you might hear an interesting announcement from me about that. But other than that. Yeah, once we have that launch, it's going to be amazing. Then we can like, launch all of our, all of our ideas off that platform. And it's going to be completely. And it's like, it's going to be completely censorship resistant. I'm to worry about fucking Apple telling me I can't do shit, which is like, literally, as a bitcoiner, it's the most infuriating thing. I think it might. This is like a childhood trauma thing I think I had when my parents would just always try to tell me to get off my control computer for just spending too much time on your computer. And I. And I have like this like, really anti, like, authoritarian thing. I think it was driven by that, like, trauma experience as a kid. Just like always being told it off my computer when I was like, that's all I want to do. So. Yeah. So when Apple's telling me that I can't do something, I'm like, I want to burn you to the ground. Now my number one focus is to, like, build around you.
- [29:11]
Walker America
So can you. Can you give a. For folks that. And if they want a deeper dive. Like, I think we discussed the various things that Apple has done to make your life a pain in the ass in the past two times you've been on. But can you give kind of like the. The brief history of the headaches of dealing with. With Apple's absurdity?
- [29:29]
Will Castron (JB55)
Yeah, I mean, it's just. It's just like. It's kind of like arguing with your girlfriend. And it's like, you know, it's not a logical argument, and it's just like an emotional thing. And you're like, you realize you can't make, like, logical arguments to like. And this is like, what it's like talking to a reviewer at Apple. It's like. I'm like, they're like, you violated this guideline. And I'm like, no, I didn't. Because this guideline says that this. I can't do it if it's being used to buy digital stuff. I'm like, well, zap is not buying digital things. It's just you're. You're giving someone a tip and they're like, no, you're still violating. I'm like, no, I'm not. So it's like you can't even argue with them in a reasonable way. I don't know. So that was the first thing. So they told us they would Remove us from the App Store. That was in like couple years ago. And so yeah, we had to remove the zap button. We added a back door so you could still turn on. Because that's how much I hate Apple. I don't care if I got, if they found out I got banned. I still wanted people to try this apps. And then there's a whole, you know, the Epic games lawsuit, which you know, we got some ground back. You're able to at least link to outside payment methods, which we still haven't done in Domus, which we should probably do. Like right now. If you sign up for lightning within Domus iOS we don't link out, but now we can, so we should probably add that. So I'm like, okay, well maybe now that they've been sued and they've been like caught in contempt of court and all this horrible shit, maybe I can just like try turning it on again. And I. So we did and it like it got re enabled for like two months. I'm like, oh cool. Maybe that maybe for some reason I can have it again. But no, like another iteration of the review. They're like, no, you have to remove it again. So it's just like this constant back and forth of just. And it's really hard to like plan to build new features around Zaps because it's like you built all this code up and now we have to like turn it off and like turn it on again. It's just very disruptive. And I don't know, we have, we're a small team. Like I don't have full time to just like argue with a fucking reviewer. And it's just like, I don't know, there's something, there's something about it that's just feel so wrong. It's like you're not my fucking, you're not my parent or something. You know, it's like why you tell me this when it's completely inconsequential? You're a trillion dollar company and you're giving me a hard time about something that's not gonna have any impact on your bottom line at all.
- [31:37]
Walker America
So I'm debating semantics where you're wrong. Like you're very easily, provably wrong in your classification of these. It's not buying any digital good. It literally just doesn't violate the policy. The policy aside, we can talk about how stupid that is, but it doesn't violate it. That was what was always just blowing my mind is like, this is just so painfully stupid.
- [31:59]
Will Castron (JB55)
It made me realize that the guidelines aren't really real. They're really just like, they're there. And, and it doesn't matter if you follow them or not, they will strong arm you into removing your app and doing whatever they want it just because, because, like, they don't. It's not like it's a contract, you know, it's just, it's just a guideline. And they, they can change at any moment. And so I don't know.
- [32:21]
Walker America
Well, I mean, it's, it's. Honestly, it's, it's very similar. Like, to go on the other side of this, it's very similar to, like, how YouTube handles things when it comes to content moderation. Like, you saw people like, you know, BDC sessions getting deplatformed. Thankfully, you know, after a massive public uproar, he was put back on. But, like, the fact that he was even flagged in the first place for, you know, violating community guidelines, which are just kind of like. Like, what did I violate? Some stuff. You just did bad stuff and you're out, you know, and like simply bitcoin. Same thing happened to them. Like, sure, it'll like, probably happen to me at some point, except I'll probably actually violate the community guidelines, but, you know, that's okay. We have no stores of backup. But it's the same thing where it's like you have these, I mean, essentially like these tech monopolies that know that they can get away with doing whatever they want because you don't have any other option on one side. Like, you know, okay, like, you want to distribute through Apple. Like, great, you know, play by our rules, which will change. But you don't want to distribute. Okay, like, just say goodbye to, like, the vast, you know, you know, over half the market. Like, just say goodbye to it. Like, you don't have access to it now. And same thing with YouTube. It's like, oh, you want your, you want to be top of the funnel for people learning about Bitcoin and Noster. Like, okay, you know, play by our rules because otherwise we'll, you know, we'll ban you a bad little boy. But I don't know, it's, it's, it's, it's frustrating. So I'm sorry for making you relive it so zaps. Because, I mean, I have like the, I remember you sent me like, the, the workaround, like, very early on after they banned it, and I was like, oh, sweet. Okay. Not going to say anything about this, but okay, it's working again. I mean, do you think that they're going to actually make any sort of long term policy change? Or do you think this is just a headache you're going to keep having to deal with?
- [34:08]
Will Castron (JB55)
So right now we can't update Domus. So they haven't told us they're going to remove the app like last time, but they said that like basically until we remove this app button again, we can't, we can't push updates, which is really frustrating for our users. So I'm at the point now where it's like, you know, there's a lot of people telling me that the workaround is to just do what Primal did, which is, which is something I'm going to have to consider, which is basically, I mean a lot of people, this is a theory, they think that once we add an in app purchase where you can pie sats, then basically all those other guidelines, they don't really apply anymore. Because if I think the way that Apple looks at it is that it's like an in app purchase, it's an in game currency they're purchasing and all the zaps you send over the app are like an in game currency. Like, I think that's how they think about it. They don't really think about it.
- [34:51]
Walker America
So you pay for forum once when you buy them, you pay your haircut to Apple and then it's like, okay, we don't care now.
- [34:57]
Will Castron (JB55)
I think that's how it works. So we're probably gonna do that. The only tricky thing is, is that, you know, we've always prided ourselves on being, being able to like use the app anywhere in the world. So I just, I'm not, I'm never gonna do something if it like restricts our wallet to like a specific locale. But I think we could do it. Like, I'm literally, I have a lightning node. I could just set up an in app purchase to like get sats out of my node. And it's like super dubious legally and because I become like an exchange and stuff. But I might just do it anyway because just a, just, you know, because I feel like, you know, you just ask, you'd ask for forgiveness later. Like that always, that was always been my thing in life. Just do something that's like technically not, you know, as long as no one bothers you about it then. And if they do bother about it, then maybe it was okay, I'll turn it off or like, okay, maybe I'll get my lawyer, but just do stuff. Like people are so afraid of just like doing shit. Like people are so busy with their own lives and worried about their own life. It's like they don't give a shit if you're doing this weird thing over here. Maybe at a certain point they'll start bugging you. But I don't know. I always say if I get thrown in jail, that's just better PR for Nasser anyway.
- [35:53]
Walker America
So, yeah, like, I hope you don't have to, like, you know, like, ideally, that'd be nice for you not to end up in jail, but it would, you know, certainly add to your street cred.
- [36:02]
Will Castron (JB55)
Well, I'm just like, I'm going to Hong Kong. My whole team's like, no, you can't go. Can't go to Hong Kong. You're gonna be like, captured. I'm like, I don't know. Well, I'd be kind of. Again, it'd be good for our app.
- [36:11]
Walker America
Like, are you guys still. You guys still banned in. Banned in China on the App Store?
- [36:15]
Will Castron (JB55)
Mainland. China.
- [36:16]
Walker America
Mainland. Yeah.
- [36:18]
Will Castron (JB55)
And I think it's one of our. Still our most downloaded regions, like, to this day, for that first day, which is crazy. Like, we had more downloads in China that one day than we've, like, our total download for its entire history. So it makes sense that China was, like, freaked out, right? I think that's my. That's my theory, is that it sent off some internal flag within their system. That's like, why is this getting so many downloads?
- [36:37]
Walker America
Dang.
- [36:38]
Will Castron (JB55)
Yeah. Yeah. And then like a month later, they banned all of our. The bootstrap relays in the app. So, like, they had a guy in, like, in the ccp, the cyber division, like, looking into Noster and blocking stuff. So that's crazy. Those were crazy times.
- [36:51]
Walker America
It's wild. Like, it wasn't that long. It feels like a long time ago, but it wasn't that long ago. You know, I remember all this going down and just being like, damn, that's.
- [36:59]
Will Castron (JB55)
Feels like ancient history now. Oh, my God. It was like two or three years ago.
- [37:02]
Walker America
I know. It's. It's crazy how time moves differently in the. In the Noster. Noster world. I'm still saying Noster, by the way. I'm just. I'm not, you know, you're not going to break me in that habit. Like, it's. I'll die on this hill.
- [37:16]
Will Castron (JB55)
Yeah, no, Sternost. Whatever.
- [37:18]
Walker America
Yeah, whatever works either way. Well, so, like. Okay, so what do you think as far as, like, I mean, I've seen, like, people talk about the growth on Noster, kind of like stagnating a Little bit like, not seeing as many inflows. I think we've also historically seen larger inflows around mass censorship events. Like, that's been a. You know, it's people running away from something versus, like, running towards something. It's like they're looking for any option. Do you think that continues to be the case, that we, like, those are. We, like, those are just always going to be the biggest drivers or do you think, like the. Hey, we have a ton of really cool, you know, micro apps and social media clients and all other things and tools for creators. Like, that's going to have people just running towards it because, like, oh, look, it's a better option. Or is there, I mean, is there some blend of that where, like. Yeah, it's a little bit of both. And it's just a really kind of slow and steady grind because we've never had an open protocol for communication like this before.
- [38:18]
Will Castron (JB55)
I think it's gonna be a combination of slow process, but also like, spikiness, like spikes of certain things getting built on it. So one example was Bitchat that Jack's working on and he's gonna add like nip17dms, a way of like sending dms via bitchat or like, so if your friend's not nearby, you can still use Nostr as like a way to like, to get the message out, even if they're not nearby. So things like that, like, if you get these apps that just go viral every now and then, it's not like a traditional startup where it's like, it goes viral and then maybe it dies and then everyone forgets about it. It's like, if it goes viral, it's like everyone, the whole network kind of grows and gets kind of a burst of energy. So it's a little bit different than just a typical startup. So maybe that's what's going to happen. But maybe, yeah, it could just be like this forever. Who knows? Like, for me, it's like I'm. I'm happy. Like, I'm happy I spend most of my time on Nostr. I mean, I don't know. It's. I don't. Yeah, it's hard. Like, I think the biggest issue that we're having at domas right now is, I mean, the number one feedback we get is that people can't find their crowd, right? That there's like, oh, it's just a bunch of bitcoiners. So building like community tools is like. Has been like kind of the big focus last year, the past year among, like, A lot of the developers on Nostr, even Jack's team. The other stuff with chorus, you know, there's flotilla by Hodlbad, we got Chad, chatter, whatever. Chad Chat. Wow. Sorry. Yeah. But there's. So, yes, more solutions like that could. Could help, but it's one of those things that it's. Who knows how history is? My biggest frustration is, like, I tend to not get too upset over things that I don't have any control over. I mean, I do have some control over, like, making my app more popular and more. And usable and get more people in, but it kind of feels like it's out of my hands. I feel like it's just gonna be some world event that's gonna bring a lot of people in. I just. And I'm just trying to make sure, like, I have the best app experience possible, just so people stick every time they come over. But that's all I can really do, and that's all I really focus on.
- [40:16]
Walker America
I know you guys recently, you implemented the. The Follow packs, which I think is like a. A big, you know, a big thing. And I. I'm not sure, like, I don't know how it worked in the back end, but did you. Do you pull that from what Kali built, or did you guys just build your own version of that? Or how did that. How did that work?
- [40:33]
Will Castron (JB55)
No, this is the beautiful thing about Nostr, right? So, and this is. I'm talking about these apps that can go viral. Like, in some sense, it went viral on Nostr, whatever that level of activity means on Noster. But everyone immediately recognized that that's a good idea that we need. You know, like, it helps onboarding and all these things. So that website was just generating that data. And my. And then. So my app could just see that data on the network, and then I can just implement a UI for that. So this is where. This is the power of Nostr, where viral apps can generate new forms of data, other apps can consume that form of data. And that is. That is the thing that makes Nostr so different from other web apps. Because web apps, it's not like you build a web app and you generate data, and then other web apps start using your data. It's like, not really. Like, they're pretty isolated, the websites, whereas Nostr is like, no, like, we actually have apps that can interoperate. And this is where that is the true power of Nostr. And, like, that's why I think, why we're. We're building all this other stuff. And this is what's Going to get, hopefully get people excited. But maybe it's too technical, maybe it's too nerdy. I know a lot of the devs like that idea. It's just we need to see it play out a bit more.
- [41:33]
Walker America
Well, I mean, I think, I think it's sweet. And for folks that aren't familiar, it's following dot space is what Cali built out. And I created a podcaster pack on there naturally, you know, just staying, just trying to stay in my lane. But like, I think that, that, I think you're exactly right that that interoperability piece and that ability to, to leverage what other people build, I mean that's the beauty of open source, right, Is that you, you have the ability to come like, yes, somebody else built something, oh great, you can just, you can use what they built. But even over and above that on Nostr, it's like, oh, it's not just you can like use the code that they built. Like you can use the data that they're generating and just, and just pull that in and surface it in your app and make your, make your app better and create. Now it's like, you know, I've seen multiple Noster clients that have implemented follow packs and so it's like, wow, that's great. Like, like more, you know, more of that. And I think that's like, that's such a strength. You don't have that in the siloed, you know, world that we operate in today. Like you, like that's a, it's a.
- [42:30]
Will Castron (JB55)
Feature of Nostr and there's a reason, right? Like the web was not designed like the things they were protocolizing was simply ways to like talk to a server. Like that's what their focus was. It's like I have some documents on a server and I'm just going to pull it down from that specific server. The genius about Nostr is that it made the data model and it made the database model into the protocol. So there's another example of that. It's like Bitcoin, I guess, is another example of this where it's like the data model is a part of the protocol, like transactions, the ledger, the database, and that's what gives it this insane power and the fact that it can replicate across the entire planet. So Nostr is just doing that for application data. So instead of monetary ledger data, it's doing it for any type of data your application might want to generate. It's not perfect. We don't have perfect peer to peer global replicatability. Like you have in bitcoin, but I think that would actually be an anti feature because I don't want your dick pics spam, like getting onto my fucking, my client if I don't want to see that. Right. So having this isolated still connected, but isolated in different patches, like that's a really cool way to design a protocol.
- [43:37]
Walker America
I think it's so funny because you know, so many of the shitcoin scammers, it's like, you know, what if we put social media on the blockchain and it's like you don't, like, like you just don't need to. That's just a stupid thing. You're just, you're just trying to raise like VC money to then go dump your token as soon as you know you've, you've got retail hooked and just gut them. But it's like you don't want that. You don't need a global state for that. That is replicated across every single node in the network. It's just not necessary. But shitcoin scammers gonna shitcoin scam.
- [44:11]
Will Castron (JB55)
Yeah. I feel like the whole blockchain, not bitcoin thing just dropped collective IQ points of a large portion of the population for a good decade and hopefully recovering.
- [44:21]
Walker America
Hopefully we're recovering from recovery.
- [44:24]
Will Castron (JB55)
I don't know if that's still a thing, if people still have conferences on blockchains, but it's just like it's not a good database. It's not a good database.
- [44:33]
Walker America
You should just have a centralized database from pretty much all of this stuff. Like bitcoin is the only viable use case of blockchain. And maybe I'm not a goddamn fortune teller, I'm a podcaster. I don't know anything. But it's the only true legitimate use that we've seen for blockchain at this time. I think that's very fair to say. And like, are there some other things that might be interesting? Yeah, but like is that actually the best way to do it? You know, like for, for money? For like a decentralized, censorship resistant, absolutely scarce money that can operate with rough consensus? Yeah, blockchain makes sense for pretty much everything else. It's like now you just should probably just have a centralized database or you should have distributed relays or you know, whatever. Like in the noster sense. Like I don't know if you. I'm probably missing some very important use cases of blockchain now. You know that. But I don't know, I'm assuming you're on the same page there Yeah, I.
- [45:27]
Will Castron (JB55)
Mean like, I'm glad we're like. This reminds me of the conversations I had in like 2017 and like it's bringing me back and like. And I think it's important to restate it like exactly. You know, like why blockchain only makes sense in the context of Bitcoin? Because you need very specific set of things that work together. Like, you know, they have the proof of work. You have like the ledger aspect. You have like the fact that it's money. And it's like you have this one particular use case and all of the things that support that data structure are toward that one goal of making a simple ledger that is money. And you can't just take those pieces and make a general purpose database. That's good. And this was always something I tried to say back in the day and I think it was ten years ago now. Oh my God. What? It was all the blockchain, not bitcoin stands this logically does not make sense because the pieces don't. It's kind of like what's that one? That's that one term where it's like they, a bunch of like tribal people, they were like, they saw airplanes land on their island and then they like, they tried to like build their own airplanes out of like wooden sticks. Oh, and they're like, what's that?
- [46:36]
Walker America
Not, not cargo. Cult. What's the. Yeah, it's gonna. Oh, it's gonna bug me.
- [46:43]
Will Castron (JB55)
I know that's like I'm gonna. Anyway, so people know what we're talking about. But like I always, I always look back at that because that's what the blockchain people are doing is that they just like they're taking an existing technology that has a very specific purpose and just like trying to build a fucking thing that's just going to fall apart. It just doesn't make sense in any other context. But then when I look at nostr, it's like hyper optimized database. I think we have probably the fastest database on the planet. I always say that I'm like non hyperbolically. The guy who made stir fry is like an absolute genius at database architecture. And after reading that code base, it literally inspired me to build the database from scratch because I just thought it was the coolest piece of software I ever saw in my life. And just like I've never seen something so hyper optimized before. And I think the reason he could have, he could actually do that is because NOSTR scope and it's like. And its structure is so simple that when you have. Whereas like a traditional database like SQL. Oh no, we're getting into databases. It's really exciting for people, but I like it.
- [47:39]
Walker America
Let's go.
- [47:40]
Will Castron (JB55)
Traditional database like SQL, you have like very complex query language, right. You have like support all these different indexes and like ways to aggregate stuff and ways to like filter data. And so it's very powerful. But that power basically restricts the amount of optimizations you can do on the database. Like in general, like generalized optimizations. So that's why a lot of people in SQL you have to create these special indexes to make it high performance. If you don't have the indexes, it'll fail. But since Nostr is a very specific form, it's a very specific structure, he was able to build this super optimal database that just basically returns things in o one time. It's like instantly, instantly, effectively instantly. So I would, Yeah, I always say Nostra if you, it has the fast, that's why it works. Like if it, if, if that software didn't, didn't exist, like Nostra wouldn't work and that. So that's good. That gives me a lot of hope that it can actually scale up to. Because we don't even really need that level of performance like in, in the, in the future. Hopefully eventually more people are running their own nodes and like, you know, it's much more distributed. Like it's, it's surprising we can handle so much load on a single server already. So anyway, I don't know what that rant was. It was a database rant.
- [48:41]
Walker America
But no, I mean I think like to, to the large part, it's like it, it's, it amazing how well this all works, right? Yeah, like and, and sure. You know, it's not, it has some rough edges, right? It's not. Yeah, you know, it's not completely perfect like because you've also got a bunch of like people building independently and then having all of this stuff kind of come together and work together and they're interfacing with, you know, with, with other apps and like. So of course they're gonna be some rough edges. Of course it's gonna be a little bit messy. But like overall like, like the fact that I'm able to have a really positive streaming experience on Zap Stream and broadcast that and any Nostr client that wants to can go ahead and pick up that stream and surface it in their own application or you can just have a link to Zap Stream, you can do that, but you can just do that. You can have it and it just works. You don't have to go to YouTube to watch a YouTube stream. And granted, with how streaming works, obviously you can stream to multiple places, but the point here is this is I'm streaming it to one place and that is getting picked up by all these different clients. And like, that's just cool. Like, that, that's a. That's a good experience. And I think that, like, yes, back to our earlier conversation about, like, okay, we're going to keep having these waves of people running away from totalitarian regimes and censorship, you know, censorship attacks and everything. But also, like, I hope that more people start to come around to the fact that there are actually just better experiences to be had on nostr, thanks to how this interoperable network of clients and relays works. Like, that is really a powerful thing. And, you know, that's going to, you know, again, I think it's. It's harder to get people to run towards something than it is to get them to run away from something. Like, when there's like a clear and present danger, you're like, okay, I need to get away from that. Whatever I hit, you know, whatever I run into, that's fine. But like, if things are kind of okay, if you haven't been, you know, if you haven't been censored, like, you know, okay, you know, I'm not really too worried. And it's just, it's going to take you time. I mean, it's like with bitcoin, like, people who live in countries where their currencies have hyperinflated grok Bitcoin a lot quicker. People who live in, you know, in the United States, like, they. Takes them a little bit longer. Granted, we have a ton of bitcoin ownership in the US but it's still like, I think the number. Cornell just put out a study in, like, the number one reason for people in the US not want. Not owning bitcoin is they're just not interested. And it's like the highest of any, like, of, of any of the countries they surveyed, the US Is the highest. So it's like people just, you know, it's like, why aren't you. Why don't you use Noster? Like, for most people, they're just not interested. But like, there are more and more compelling use cases for why you could be interested, like, especially as a content creator. And that's like the drum I will keep beating. It's like, if you're a content creator, you should be using Noster. Like, if Nothing. Like, I don't view it as a backup. I view it as like, this is a primary part. Like, everything else is kind of a backup. Like this, I think, is what has the staying power. But like, if you need to think of it as a backup at first to get you on here and get you to start using it, do that and at least check it out.
- [51:45]
Will Castron (JB55)
You said something that reminded me of, you know, we're talking about how, you know, we, at least at the very start, we're talking about how, like, yeah, we're winning, but like, not, not really, because I was looking at. I feel like recently in the news, people have been talking a lot more about, like, stable coins and especially in like the Southern America and stuff like, that's all they talk about. It's like stable, stable coins. I mean, I think even recently I saw Trump was saying something like, they're not going to buy bitcoin anymore. I think I saw that this morning. I don't know if that was true.
- [52:14]
Walker America
I mean, without giving it too much air, Scott Besant basically was on, on the news and said, like, you know, said positive things like bitcoin is a store of value for the 21st century. And, and, you know, we're not going to sell any of our bitcoin that we've confiscated. And if we confiscate more, we're also going to hold on to that. But we're like, not going to buy any or we're not going to buy any of that was his expression. I think he was probably talking off the cuff. And I may have tweeted and noted some incendiary things in all caps because I would like to troll a little bit, but at the end of the day, I think people need to remember that bitcoin doesn't need the US government, but the US Government does need bitcoin and they'll realize that sooner or later. I don't really care if they start buying it. I would hope if all countries are eventually going to print their fiat and buy it, I would hope the US Would be the first. But, like, you know, we'll see what our glorious leaders have to say about that. At the end of the day, like, I'm okay with sats still being cheap, as cheap as possible for people, for the average person, for as long as possible. But I digress.
- [53:19]
Will Castron (JB55)
Yeah, it's just interesting because, like, you know, even with the great success of, you know, the price movement, I guess price movement is a success. That's one way of valuing or seeing the six I mean, I look at bitcoin as a technology and I'm like, I think it's already a success, success. I don't care what the price is. But obviously, you know, price is also a really good indicator of like measuring how much other people believe it's also a success. So I'm, but I'm still like, I hear these stories about people, like how there's like mainly focused on, like, I've always been my number one focus, always been like how you get people to use bitcoin. Like, I think that was one of the big reasons why I made the ZAPS protocol. And I just wanted people to experience what it is to have to feel like true freedom. But sometimes I do look at all these other incumbents that are just trying to take over the payments, like the digital payments aspect. And I always wanted bitcoin to be that thing. But I don't know, it seems like stablecoins are for some reason taking off and I don't know why that is. Is it just like government is just like there's more startups working on. I don't know, there's a lot more money there. It seems very. I don't know, I feel like sometimes I'm just so out of touch with what everyone else is doing. I'm just working on bitcoin technology and building stuff in Noster and Zavs. But. And I look at the rest of the world, I'm like, wait, everyone's not interested in bitcoin for payments? They're using tether? I don't know, it's kind of frustrating sometimes.
- [54:34]
Walker America
Yeah. I mean, I think from the stablecoin perspective, it's like the US dollar has a greater network effect than bitcoin does at this point. Right. That's undeniable. People all around the world want US Dollars more so than people want Bitcoin. And like we can argue that like that's, that's foolish and they shouldn't want dollars. Dollars are just a shitcoin. But like it's just the reality. Like it. And it's going to eventually, you know, it slowly changes. But like, so I think that viewing it through that lens, it's like it's natural that people, especially in developing, you know, countries where they have even worse fiats than we do here in the US or than the moose knuckle currency you have up in Canada, of course they're going to want dollars. And if there's a way for them to have digital dollars that they can send around on their phone, then yeah, they're, they're going to want that. And like a lot of them also want Bitcoin, but like dollars still have a greater network effect. So I think it's just like it's.
- [55:34]
Will Castron (JB55)
A technology to get more dollar to get more fiat basically.
- [55:37]
Walker America
Yeah. And well, I mean there's just, there's obviously there's a ton of money to be made on the stablecoin issuance side. You know, like Tether's like the most profitable company like in the history of the world. Like in espec. Like on a per headcount basis. Like it's, it's nuts. And like, okay, that's something that's like it is obviously useful to people around the world because people are using it around the world. Whether or not that's obviously that's also a tool of US dollar dominance. I think that the US government's realizing that now whether or not that's a good or a bad thing, let's see. But we can't deny that at least Tether is providing something that people want and people need and is useful to them. And like I think that people are going to come around to Bitcoin just like people are going to come around to Noster. But like it takes time. Like these entrenched systems are just that they are entrenched. Like they have the stronger network effects at this time.
- [56:36]
Will Castron (JB55)
It's, you know, if, if I was trying to steel man like positive things about that and from, in that, from that perspective I could maybe make the point. Like maybe it familiarizes people more with the technology and more with like interacting with keys. And maybe that's the stage we're at is like we just got to get more people like used to using this technology versus just like right now they're just used to their credit card and like their banks, you know, PIN numbers and stuff. So it's just going to take a large mental shift and maybe that's the same with nosr. It's like, you know, having old holding your key is still very hard for people. Like I still get emails, like tens of emails every day of just people. Like I can't log into Domus, I can't post anything. I'm like. And then they're all logged in with their npub. I think there actually might be a bug. Maybe there's a bug because I think when it restores from backup it uses the endpub instead of ends. Like okay, that's probably my fault, but.
- [57:21]
Walker America
Still, why do these people keep complaining? Just get smarter.
- [57:25]
Will Castron (JB55)
I'M like, oh, wait, that's actually a bug.
- [57:27]
Walker America
Well, this is an interesting thing where technology and user experience can help to drive behavior. I love what, what Samson and his team at Aqua Wallet are doing for this reason. To clarify, I'm in no way sponsored by them or anything. I just like what they're building. I like the wallet. It's one of the many lightning wallets I use.
- [57:48]
Will Castron (JB55)
Me and Selena started that wallet at Blockstream. Yeah. So that was me and Celine's idea, was Aqua Wallet.
- [57:55]
Walker America
No way. Well, look at that. Wow. Okay, so I was here, I was sitting back just taking this compliment.
- [58:00]
Will Castron (JB55)
You're like, I'm like, oh, well, you know, we worked hard. I didn't do a lot of the programming, but it was more of just like I always wanted a single Sig wallet. I was hired by Blockchain to work on a bitcoin back end to the Green wallet. And I always thought the multi Sig wallet was kind of complicated. So I'm like, what if we just have a single Sig wallet that just talks to the bitcoin core node and then somehow that evolved into Aqua? Yeah, I know, that's awesome. Now we both know that.
- [58:24]
Walker America
No, this is a cool bit of lore, but it's nice because I also like if people are going to use stablecoins like Tether, personally I think it's best if they do that on the liquid network versus Ethereum or Tron, just because I'm a toxic bitcoin maximalist. But really. But that experience is really nice within Aqua where you basically, you have that capability to swap back and forth between Bitcoin and Tether and Layer one Bitcoin and they just generally call it Layer two Bitcoin. I know they're doing some kind of fancy stuff on the back. Like the lightning payment takes like a little bit longer because it's like an atomic swap or something that's going on. Right? But like, like that's a nice experience. Like you can use that as your USDT Stablecoin Wallet. But then you have a very easy way to be able to swap into bitcoin. And like, even like I've literally heard, heard Paolo, the CEO of Tether be like, yeah, tether's a shitcoin. Everything that's not bitcoin is a shitcoin. Like tether's a US dollar Stablecoin. Of course it's a shitcoin. Like, you know, like they, yeah, like they're pretty. Like from the people I know over there, at least they're Pretty hardcore bitcoiners. So yeah, I don't know, it's like, it's one of those things where I think it's a useful tool. I use stablecoins like occasionally, not a ton, but like I do occasionally. And when I do it, I do it on liquid, but. But yeah, I don't know. I'm glad these things, I'm glad these things exist. There are obviously some very worrisome, like down the road, like, I don't know, we're going to see basically every major bank, I think is going to have their own little stablecoin. Old JP Morgan is going to be champing at the bit to get their own little JPM coin out there.
- [60:05]
Will Castron (JB55)
Yeah, it seems much more likely that you would see a lot of stablecoin integration into banks versus have a bitcoin transaction, like a lightning transaction. I don't know, maybe it's kind of sad, but maybe bitcoin and lightning will always just be that freedom technology that's just like the wild west on the side and people who like really care about the stuff will have access to it. Maybe Nostra would be the same. I don't know. Yeah, some people just don't like to, you know, have that responsibility. They want like someone else to handle that for them. And maybe that's just a universal thing that will never change. And maybe that's just why, you know, there'll always be people in power who can have control because there's always going to be people who just want to be, you know, they don't want to have any responsibility. Maybe that's, I don't know, maybe that's just always going to be the case.
- [60:50]
Walker America
Yeah, I mean like human nature remains relatively consistent, you know, in a lot of ways. And like also breakdowns of people within society remain pretty consistent despite the changes that technology brings. It's like, you know, people are still people at the end of the day. I don't know. I mean, in terms of like, okay, do bitcoin and lightning and nostrist days, like these fringe things. I mean you probably saw this but like back in, I think it was February, it was at plan B, El Salvador, they announced that they're going to have tether on lightning. So that's another thing where it's like, okay, that's kind of that argument for not only, yeah, bitcoin's money, but the layers on top of bitcoin can also be used as rails for these fiat payments. And again, you can debate whether or not people should. Yeah, fiat's a shitcoin, but it's like. But people still want to use it, you know what I mean? So at this point the market still wants to use it, so we can debate whether that's good or bad, but it's just the reality of it. And if people are doing it on lightning or on liquid things that are Bitcoin adjacent, I think that's better. Ultimately I'd rather see that than again on Ethereum or Tron or wherever else. But yeah, I mean, we'll see. It's an interesting time. It's an interesting time.
- [62:14]
Will Castron (JB55)
Yeah, maybe. I don't know. I always like to look at it from a computer nerd perspective. Maybe the correct analogy as a computer nerd would be like, it's always just going to be the Linux operating system. And yeah, there's going to be variations. There's going to be the Mac, the Mac OS that's built on similar ideas and there's going to be a little bit more lockdown, a little bit more restricted. But at the end of the day, the thing that's going to be under everything is Bitcoin and that's going to be the interoperability layer, even if it's not always exposed to the user. And that's still okay. I think. I think that as long as that freedom there, you can always drop down to a level where you can be free. That is so important because if we didn't have that, then that would be a scary future. So always we have the option to drop down to that level is pretty important.
- [62:58]
Walker America
I couldn't agree more. You need that optionality, you need that, that opt out. And like, even if you still want to exist in the kind of more fiat world, like the fact that you have a way to get out of there when you need to is really important. I'm curious too, like just so obviously, you know, you spend your time working on domus. On note that these, like this, this kind of ecosystem that you're building, there are there other things. You touched on a couple of them earlier. But there are other things that you see happening on Nostr, either on like the social media side or elsewhere that you're just really like excited about or that you see as like, oh, I'd like to incorporate X, Y and Z into what we're doing here at domus. Like that's a really neat, neat tool or neat feature set, whatever it might be.
- [63:43]
Will Castron (JB55)
Yeah, I mean I never thought it would be cool, but like the whole bitchat thing, I'm not just trying to Toot Jack's horn or anything. But I actually got to use it at the Portland and at the time we had the largest bit chat group and I actually had a lot of fun. I, I saw a lot of cool use cases where you know, I was in the, I was in the audience and like American Hodl was up there and everyone in the audience was like on Bitch hat and they're like chirping them and stuff and like having a little peanut gallery.
- [64:08]
Walker America
That's awesome.
- [64:09]
Will Castron (JB55)
I just thought it was hilarious and I was like, I sent that photo that to like to. And he was like, oh, that's funny. But like things like festivals and so this idea. So that gave me the idea of what happens if we're in the world in this, in this world where you walk, if you're just walking down the street and let's say you have an interest of like I'm buying bitcoin and then someone has another interest that they're selling bitcoin and then two Bitch Hat nodes, they just detect each other and they detect that there's a trade that could be possible. It just pops up on your phone that says this guy wants to sell bitcoin and you. And so like there's, I think there's a lot of cool like peer to peer market, like buying and selling things that could happen over like these peer to peer protocols. So that's why I've been having a lot of fun like adding more peer to peer stuff within Note Deck and within the DOMUS Android stack. So being able to like communicate over Bitch is something like I'm looking at right now as like a potential peer to peer transport layer for nostr. So there's like. And we are, we already have like a. If you're on a, if you're on a WI FI network with, with other DOMUS nodes you can actually just send notes, you know, like it'll get them peer to peer. So there's a lot of fun things like around there I think are really interesting. But outside of that, yeah, the community aspects, the community apps, those are going to be huge. I want to get Reddit, I want Reddit on top of Nostr because I think Reddit's a shithole of censorship and that's the next thing to be cleaned up, I think. So things like that hopefully can start building those soon.
- [65:33]
Walker America
Nice. That's super cool. The idea of having kind of that localized ability to do a peer to peer bitcoin transaction from a buying and selling perspective, obviously you can do a bitcoin transaction anytime you want. But like I have somebody like that I want to anonymously buy bitcoin from using. I mean, I don't know, I guess, probably, probably using. Probably using tether, I guess. Unless you want to meet that person physically. Like you're, you know. So like that's a, that's an interesting question there, but I think that's, that's, that's really neat. And I think the, that the more of these like tools that we start actually like using like the largest bitchat I've had also is two people. It's just been me and Carla in the house. Our son's not using bitch at yet. He's a little young.
- [66:15]
Will Castron (JB55)
Gotta get him on that.
- [66:17]
Walker America
Yeah, I know, I know. He's, he's really been slack on his freedom. Tech, like, this stuff is really, it's really cool to see. It's really cool to see the like, what's possible because like these technologies that we have in this. These like phones, like, these are like, these are supercomputers. Like calling them phones is just still feels like funny. Like that's the thing people do on them the least and yet we still call them phones. But there's so much that can be.
- [66:41]
Will Castron (JB55)
Done and it's kind of shame. Like it's literally has a very powerful radio and it's actually really locked down. You can't, you can only use it for like talking to cell towers for the most part. But if we had the ability to just like go peer to peer on our phones to other nodes, like to other phones, like, that would be hugely empowering. And maybe that's why they don't want us to have that technology. Or maybe it just like interferes with the bands too much or something, I don't know. But there's. I always say, like a conversation at a bar is the most decentralized thing you can do. It's like completely peer to peer, doesn't require any centralized architecture infrastructure, no cloud involved. You're just having a beer with someone. So I think what we're doing, what peer to peer technology, is simply restoring that human thing we've been doing for hundreds of thousands of years. So I think it's worthwhile having a.
- [67:24]
Walker America
Beer or a nice glass of Peony Lane wine, who did send me this wine to drink on the show and shout out to Ben Justman for being a huge noster bull. And also the wine is really great and it's all organic guys. And he's literally paying me in the wine that I'm drinking to say this, so I just want to be clear there.
- [67:46]
Will Castron (JB55)
And he has really interesting wine threads on Oster. I've learned a lot about wine and I've zapped. Those are kind of like the highest zap things. It's really interesting content, so you should definitely follow him.
- [67:56]
Walker America
It's fascinating stuff. And I love the story too, where it's like he's moved, you know, basically, like, moved back in the land that, you know, his. His dad was kind of, you know, basically, like, you know, working on and developing and like, you know, just. Just decided, like, I'm just going to make wine. I think he said over half of his sales are in bitcoin too, which is like, like crazy. That's awesome. Like, that's, that's. That's really huge. Like, and it just goes to show you that, like, there are a lot of bitcoiners who want to spend bitcoin. I mean, you see. And you see this on Noster every day. What is a zap? A zap is spending bitcoin, right? Like, that's what you were doing. And if you just want to hold your bitcoin, hodl your bitcoin, hodl your bitcoin, however you'd like to say it and not ever spend any of it, that's fine, too. I don't care what you do with your money, but shout out to the people who are out there spending bitcoin. I try to do it every chance I get. I mean, I do it on Nostr every day, but I try to do it for goods and services as well when I can. Because it's like, I think that bitcoin needs to be a medium of exchange and be used as medium of exchange to reach that full potential of what it can do. But the great thing is bitcoin doesn't care if you do or do not use it in that way. And as long as some people do, it'll be all right. You send some fat zaps out there, will. So you're doing your part.
- [69:20]
Will Castron (JB55)
I try. I don't know. I feel like the zapping has definitely died down a lot, and that's fine. Obviously, the price has increased and people, you know, are busy doing other things. But, you know, it is a very. I think it's a rare experience a lot of people don't get to experience very often. But I went to the. When I was at the Portland conference and I, like, I haven't. I haven't used lightning in a physical place in a long time. I was like, Wait, I just, like, I use the new domestic feature or like the paying invoice feature. So I was getting zaps from people sending me zaps on the network and I was like, buy. I bought a bitcoin pin and I'm like, that's such a cool feeling that you can just get paid in freedom units and then just use it to buy something in real life. And my main goal in life is just to get more people to experience that. Because there's nothing more like, fuck, yeah, freedom than that, right?
- [70:09]
Walker America
It is pretty cool. And again, I wonder how much bitcoin NGU technology will actually end up driving people to noster. Like, I feel like we, like, like when zap, when you first brought, like, created zaps, I feel like there was like, so much buzz about them and, like, people were just like, super stoked. But, like, the price was like. I mean, that was like, the price was pretty low with that. We were like depths of the bear market at that point.
- [70:34]
Will Castron (JB55)
People were just like just 15,000, I think, or something.
- [70:37]
Walker America
It was literally like. I think you released it, like, at the, like the bottom of the bottom of the bear.
- [70:44]
Will Castron (JB55)
Ralph sent like a 20 million sat zap. Like, that's neat. He was going crazy.
- [70:50]
Walker America
I remember when, when Jack was out there, like, just like picked like a list of people that I felt privileged enough to be on who were like active noster, either users or developers or whatever, and just like sent like a million sats to each person. I was like, that's like, really cool. And also like, wow, like, testing, you know, fat channels as well. Like, that's. That's a. It's a neat thing to do.
- [71:10]
Will Castron (JB55)
I do it occasionally just to test my liquidity. I just. I'll drop like 100k. Just make sure my node's still operating.
- [71:16]
Walker America
Are you dropping into one of your nims, though? You're just zap washing yourself.
- [71:21]
Will Castron (JB55)
I think the last one was like, the Isabella Art. That person. I don't know. I just did a cool post. I'm like, I don't know, it's nice to just drop some fat sats every now and then. Like, just like, I feel like. I don't know, it's like going to the strip clubs, like, throw. Throw some cash and everyone's having a good time.
- [71:33]
Walker America
I've kept my zap, my default zap at 696, like just forever. And if, like, if it's a really, really banger post or somebody really brought a lot of value, I'll do a, you know, 69, 60 and, like, I looked at. I looked at my, you know, zap sent, verse received on. I forget where I checked this out, but it was like, you know, I've sent, you know, millions more SATs than I've received. Like, I'm not making money on Nostr, but that's not my. Like, that's not my goal. I'm not, like, hoarding these sats that I'm receiving on Nostr and, like, trying to. Trying to skimp out, you know, how many I send. It's like, no. I, like, I want people. Like, nothing feels better than getting a really big zap because you know that somebody, like, actually valued what you put out there. And, you know, they valued it because they just sent you the hardest money that will ever exist. And, like, now I remember what I was getting to. I feel like as bitcoin price goes up, like, and people start hearing like, hey, there's this, like, social media protocol where people will, like, send you bitcoin when you, you know, I don't know, post foot pics. Or we got to bring footster back to when you post foot pics. Or you, you know, like, you know, have a. Have a really, like, hot take or, you know, whatever, you post a beautiful piece of art or a picture of your, you know, family out in the woods. Like, that's like, that's a pretty incredible thing. And I feel like still the majority of the world is sleeping on bitcoin, and the people that are even aware of bitcoin, many of them are sleeping on Nostr. And so I feel like it's only a matter of time, but I think we need to start re stressing like, hey, you can make money by shitposting. We need to get back to that narrative a little bit or by foot posting. Either way, Derek Ross will be so happy.
- [73:16]
Will Castron (JB55)
Yeah, I don't know. I think it's just. Maybe there's just the fact that it's not a tangible asset in the sense that if you have a kilo of gold in your hand, you're like, damn, this is pretty baller. And that's what isn't bitcoin. Roughly, like that about a kilo of gold. So I always say, like, zapping is like sending chunks of gold or gold dust over the Internet. And if people just saw gold coming out of their computer, they'd be like, holy shit, that's cool. But maybe it's not as, like, impactful if it's just bits. I don't know.
- [73:44]
Walker America
But, yeah, yeah, no, bitcoin is more than than a kilo of gold. Now, I just. I just had to check. A kilo of gold is, like, 107,000. 107,000 US petrodollar cuck bucks. So Bitcoin is one. Bitcoin is more than a kilogram of gold, which is pretty wild.
- [74:03]
Will Castron (JB55)
The fact you can teleport gold over the Internet. Like, not even gold, but better gold. Like, gold. That's like, the technology that's, like, a hundred times better than gold.
- [74:12]
Walker America
It is nuts. It is literally magic Internet money. Like, that's.
- [74:15]
Will Castron (JB55)
Why wouldn't you want to play with that technology? Just, like, the coolest thing ever, teleporting, like, real value.
- [74:24]
Walker America
It's pretty incredible. And I feel like I've been saying this a lot lately, but just been thinking about this and just. I feel so fortunate to be alive at this place in space and time. How lucky are we that we get to be around for literally the dawn of the bitcoin age? It's going to get messy in the short term, but long term, I am super bullish on humanity because of what bitcoin allows. And that's just. I don't know. That's a really cool thing.
- [74:51]
Will Castron (JB55)
Well, I always say, just imagine if you were the first person to discover the properties of gold and no one else could. Like, oh, it's just like, this malleable metal that's, like, why would you want to use that? It's. It's kind of, like, useless. And then it's a very fortunate time. Everyone who is, like, not partaking or at least, like, looking into it or at least learning about it, you're doing yourself a huge disservice because it's like, the. The best. This is the most unique time. Like, think of, like, at cosmological scales, like, what's the Earth? Like, 4.7 billion years or something? And like, we're at this one moment in time where we create this technology that is perfect scarcity, mathematical scarcity, based off the laws of physics. And you're here at this point in time, it's like. And you think it's a scam. Like, can you talk about the biggest fumble of your, like, entire existence? I can't think of anything more important to be doing other than building on bitcoin. It's Nothing else seems as important. Maybe I would have appreciated a bit more if I'm like, if I, you know, was born in a time where there's immortality, but even, like, that would be the only thing that would be better than. This is, like, the best time I can think of. Because every time, every. Every point before this point is like, like, people are having a bad time. It's not really a bad time right now. So.
- [76:05]
Walker America
No. And honestly, I go back and forth and the whole immortality thing, it's like, boy, that there, it's. It always sounds good. But, you know, if I. I know anything from science fiction or from fantasy, it's like there is a dark side to living forever, you know, Especially if everybody else around you dies. But I digress. No, it is wild to me that still so many people are absolutely asleep at the wheel. And I get it from the perspective of you're dealing with. You're trying to provide for your family, you're trying to keep your head above water because the system is just bleeding you dry. And that's kind of the sad thing, is that so many people are so wrapped up in the current system because they are stuck on that hamster wheel that they. They can't dedicate the time to looking at the one thing that would actually save them from that. Like, there's a really dark kind of like a really depressing irony. There is like.
- [76:55]
Will Castron (JB55)
Well, you kind of get stuck. Like, it's like, how do you get out of that? Because you're basically just doing. You're just paying. You're spending your whole paycheck just to, like, so you can, like, pay rent. So you're trying to, like, scrounge a little bit of money and be super disciplined just to put a little bit away. So I feel like if I was in that state, I would just like, what my number one goal would be was try to start a bitcoin business and just try to get as much people sending me bitcoin as possible. Because it's going to be hard to just try to make Fiat and then buy bitcoin. I don't know. I feel like the better way to get lots of bitcoin if you had none, is just try to start a bitcoin business. But I don't know, I can't think of any other better ways, really.
- [77:34]
Walker America
Well, and it's cool too, because we're at this point where, because we're still very much in the innovator phase. Like, I don't even think we're at the early adopter phase yet. Like, if you look like actually from like a technology, you know, the S curve perspective, I don't think we've actually reached that. That early adopter phase yet. But because of that, we've got a bunch of super hardcore people who like Again, not everybody wants to spend their bitcoin. Some people don't ever want to spend a single sat. But like, for those of us that do, like, we will support businesses that accept bitcoin and especially if you embody that ethos. And like, that's the great thing about Nostr right now is like you can just start a business on Nostr providing a valuable product or service and people will be very happy to pay you in bitcoin for doing that and maybe just send you random zaps along the way for your thoughts about building this bitcoin business. Ben Justman is a great example of that with Peony Lane wine. Ben, I'm giving you as many shout outs as possible for this because I'm enjoying the heck out of this wine. But that's an awesome thing that you can do that you can just go start providing value for people, charge bitcoin. And if what you're providing is valuable and people want it, they will pay you in bitcoin for it.
- [78:51]
Will Castron (JB55)
And the market isn't just like your local currency or the currency of the country you're in, it's the entire planet. So that's a much wider market than. Because I remember I was going a lot of these HRF events and they were saying people who are in Africa and that was kind of their biggest struggle is just trying to get to sell their products to the wider market. And it's like, it's really hard to get it out there. But on bitcoin they can just put it on, let's say Nostr and start selling their product to anyone in the world without having to try to go through all these resellers like Amazon and apparently it's just a lot harder to go through. I don't know. But yeah, there's a lot of opportunities and I think that we're going to get better and better marketplaces and storefronts on Noster, like something I've been thinking about it a lot as well. We're starting to see more of that. So yeah, it's going to get easier and easier just to start a business on Noster and to start selling stuff. So it's exciting times.
- [79:44]
Walker America
I think that's like another thing where it's like, if you're a Noster only business, which I think some of these folks are like, you know, if you want to, if you want to get him, you have to go to Noster to find them. But that sort of Noster only product and also like Noster only services that, including content creation I love what American Hodl is doing right now with his Noster Only vlogs because he's a guy who has a. Everybody listens when he talks, right? Because he's very enjoyable to listen to and he always drops very profound things in his very special way. And, but like, he could be, you know, going on X and you know, doing, you know, live streams on there and vlogs on there and posting these things to YouTube or, you know, wherever else, but he's not, he's making a conscious choice to say, I'm just going to do this for Nostr only. And I think that's, that's like really cool. It's why I do these live streams just on Nostr and like, yeah, I publish them everywhere else after the fact. I'm not quite as cool as American Hodl, but like, I think that kind of like creators, or especially creators creating experiences that can only be had on Nostr, I think is a really great way to bring more and more people over because it's like, if you like, that's a powerful thing. People, audiences follow people, right? And if you can only get a certain type of content on this decentralized, censorship resistant platform, it also happens to have a really nice user experience for you and multiple choices and options like, that's a great thing. So I hope I encourage creators like to, to do more of that if you can think of a way, and.
- [81:23]
Will Castron (JB55)
You certainly can, and I always see that as a sign of someone with great integrity and someone who's like, willing to sacrifice maybe a little bit of, a bit of their, you know, because it's an opportunity costing. They could be spending time like getting onto the bigger platforms or promoting their content, but they believe in something that's like, important. It's bigger than just making money. And, and, but these, these are the things. These are, these are the types of people that are gonna make Nostr successful. Because the only thing that's gonna draw people to Nostr is like unique content if it's just getting cross posted to other platforms and like, well, they don't need to leave their platform. So if they see like, wait, there's just so much stuff like I'm like, oh, I'm like, well, I have to go over here because this is where everyone's posting the interesting things I want to see. So that's why I've always been really, in the past, like, I guess two or three years now, ever since I quit Twitter, is just, just try to, yeah, post everything I'm working on every Day probably too much because I'm just like, I work in the open. But you know, maybe it's probably doing disservice in Austria because some people like, oh God, he's posting some crazy again. And they end up going away back to the X. But no, but I think it's like people who post better content is hopefully, will it be the people who are attracting everyone else. So I'm not good at influencing, I'm just good at, I don't know, posting crazy shit.
- [82:35]
Walker America
Yeah, but like, but influencing takes different forms, right? And I think it's become such like a dirty word too. But like, you know, like, what is, what does it actually mean? It means that like, whatever you say and do people pay attention to. Like, like, you obviously, like, you are more than, you know, I'm not going to call you like, you're just an influencer. You're obviously a developer is actually building cool shit. But like, you do also influence people. Like very obviously, like you've influenced people enough where you have a whole team around you building this open source, you know, tech stack like that, that I don't know what that is if not, if not having influence. And like, I think I, like, I think it's cool. You influence me, Wild Bill. So there's that.
- [83:14]
Will Castron (JB55)
I always say that, like, I, I agree that it has become like a derogatory term almost, but you're exactly, you're absolutely right. It's like it's impossible not to. Anytime you put something into the Internet, even if you don't think you're influencing people, it's like you're literally influencing people. Like every, every time that note goes into every brain, it's an influencing that brain in some way. It's like either making them, them happy, making them sad, making them angry, it's like impossible not to influence people even if. Yeah. So I don't know, everyone's an influencer.
- [83:42]
Walker America
It, it makes you, makes you kind of be a little bit more, I guess, mindful of what you're putting out there too. Like knowing that whatever you do is going to have some sort of impact on people. I myself am guilty of not being super mindful about that. Sometimes I'm just gonna troll. Yeah, got him. But, you know, I do find that I am perhaps I'm at the same time more mindful of what I put out, but also more free on Noster. And I think this has been a common experience for a lot of people is that they feel that like, you can just kind of be like, you don't have to be anything but yourself. Like there's. Because honestly, like authenticity is rewarded on Noster and fakeness is rejected. Like you, you see that's why a lot of people feel that, yeah, like bigger account, you know, quote, bigger accounts. Like, like kind of, you know, maybe came and went from Noster, but like, you know, you've got folks that are, have came and stayed. Like, you know, like Lynn Alden for example, who posts stuff exclusively to Noster. Like very unfiltered thoughts on there. I mean Jack as another great example, huge. I mean, you know, a very well known person who has spent a lot of time on Nostr posting thoughts that are exclusively found there like that, you know, and people have come over specifically to be able to partake in those, you know, unrestricted thoughts that people like Jack and Lynn, but also that people with way smaller, you know, followings have put out there. So like I think that's good. Like we content creators are ultimately or not just content creator. Like again that's that word. Feels like all these words feel dirty now. Like we're all just people, right? But like people have followings now in cyberspace and if you have a large following in cyberspace and you bring that following over to Nostr, that will help grow Nostr, like full stop. Like so I, I hope we continue to see more of that. I think it's honestly going to take another round of vicious censorship and crackdowns. Did you see any spikes like recently in the UK or.
- [85:40]
Will Castron (JB55)
I think so. I mean I definitely notice a lot more people on the network and I assume that's because especially like I did that tweet about like scanning the anus or whatever for some reason that like went viral on us. Like, like the post was like, oh yeah, they're gonna start scanning your face. So apparently people that really resonated with people because it's true. It's kind of like that's what it feels like. They're just like, it's so invasive and the things they're doing feels so un. Unnatural. It's like, like they're just being gross. Right? But yeah, it's, it's, it's true though like what you're saying about the whole reputation and like you can't being fake. It's, it's like reputation is everything. It's, you know, your identity is a. Tied to your key. There's no algorithms that can like pump. So like one of the first things that I. A few influencers and like not influencers, but like basically content oh God, I can't use the words. But content creators, they came to me and they're like, how do I go viral on your platform? Like, what do I have to do? How do I, like, game the algorithm so that I get. And like, that was their mentality because, like, that's how they operated on Instagram or whatever. And, and, but like, that's how they get influenced. But they don't get it through authenticity. They don't get it through like, like, well, I mean, interesting content. Sure. But they rely a lot on those algorithms, kind of pump their content. But on Noster, it's like you kind of really have to rely on like your, your reputation. Your reputation is everything. The minute you trash your reputation, which is tied to a key, like a publicly verifiable key, it's like, then you kind of like you lose and that's the most important thing. So I don't know, I feel like a lot of people, people are a lot more authentic on Oster, and that's honestly just made the network feel more like a community of people who are just like real people and not just like this fake games people that people are playing just to go viral and just to get in fights and stuff. I don't know. So it feels much more like a human network.
- [87:26]
Walker America
Yeah, it's like you're. If you're fake, it's like you're like literally cryptographically signing away your, your soul. Like, it's like you just, you just sold your soul and put your cryptographic signature on it. So, like, everybody now, you know, can see that. But yeah, it's not. I mean, I think that the growth is honestly going to be fairly slow and steady still with these kind of pumps, as we saw. But I'm also hopeful that the great thing about the fiat world is man governments just love to do stupid totalitarian shit. So I think that's only going to accelerate ultimately. And so maybe we get a lot faster growth than we think. And in the meantime, like all of these incredible tools, like the tools that you were building, like the tools that so many open source devs are building, these tools are getting better and better and better every day and finding new ways to be interoperable together. And NOSTR is ready for larger adoption now. For a while it kind of wasn't. I mean, you've been there since the beginning, you know, things were quick and dirty, you know, but like the experience is just night and day difference now. And so if somebody's listening to this and they've made it this far and they checked out Noster like a year ago or like two years ago and said, oh, this isn't. I don't like that. Like just try it again, you know, and if you don't like the client that you tried, try a different one. You know, try. Try Domus, try other ones. Like that's the great thing. There's optionality, like you can.
- [88:55]
Will Castron (JB55)
There's so many.
- [88:56]
Walker America
There's so many options.
- [88:57]
Will Castron (JB55)
There's Jumble Social which everyone really likes right now.
- [89:00]
Walker America
I haven't used that one yet.
- [89:01]
Will Castron (JB55)
Oh, it's like, it's kind of the new hotness. Yeah. Jumbled on Social.
- [89:05]
Walker America
I'm behind the times. Geez.
- [89:07]
Will Castron (JB55)
They have like a really cool like two panel display where you can like scroll on one and click. It opens on the other side. Like I want to steal so many things. And they have like a relay viewer and stuff. I'm like, I really like that idea. I don't know, it's just like really, people are building good stuff.
- [89:21]
Walker America
I. I love it. Is there anything else that you're working on that you want to talk about? I've kept you here for a while, so just. But I want to make sure like if there's anything else you want to tease, anything else you want to preview, obviously people should go. Should go check out Damas and use it. It's a great client. It's a client that I use every single day. I am not paid to say that either. Just like I'm not paid to drink Peony Lane wine, but I sure am giving it and you would like some more bottles. And I hope I did good, Ben, because boy, this. This wine is excellent. But what else do you want people to know or where do you want to send people? Yeah, shill anything and everything.
- [89:58]
Will Castron (JB55)
Yeah. So I highly recommend trying out our new client. It works on the desktop. You can go to Domus IO notedeck to download it. Although that build is old, I should probably push a new build. At the end of the month I will be announcing a new client that runs on mobile and you could probably guess which mobile client that is. So come check it out. Bitcoin Asia and our future prospects for notetch are a little. There's a lot. I think I've talked about it before, but it's not just another client. It's going to be a new type of platform for building NOSTR apps. So yeah, definitely check it out. You'll get a sense of it when you download it. Because we have an AI agent inside of it. It's kind of like Grok for Nostr. I'm building this tool that you can. If anyone's ever used Obsidian, it's like Obsidian on Nostr. I have a built in Lightning node Manager in it now. So it's basically like an app browser for Nostr that's like going to support dynamic loading of apps anyway, so it's like, it's really cool new technology. Check it out. Yeah. And you can follow me on nostr jb555.com it's my nostr address. So. Yeah.
- [91:07]
Walker America
Oh, man. Thanks so much for coming on again. This was. Was long overdue. It's always great chatting with you. I will not be at Bitcoin Asia, unfortunately. I'll have to check out the stream, but hopefully we get a chance to reconvene in the flesh again soon. Have a. Have a drink together in person.
- [91:23]
Will Castron (JB55)
Absolutely.
- [91:25]
Walker America
Maybe.
- [91:25]
Will Castron (JB55)
Hopefully. I was gonna say that.
- [91:32]
Walker America
Thanks so much and thank you to everybody who joined in on the live stream. I appreciate you guys. If you want to watch this show live, the only place you can do that is on Nostr. So go and check out Nostr and come and watch this show live in the future. Yeah. And thank you to everybody who joined and thank you to everybody who zapped too. 5,282 sats. That's. That's pretty cool.
- [91:53]
Will Castron (JB55)
Wow. That's generational wealth.
- [91:54]
Walker America
That's nice. I'm gonna go zap it all away now. You know, pay it forward. But on me maybe. Maybe. All right, man. Cheers.
- [92:04]
Will Castron (JB55)
All right, cheers. Bye.
- [92:14]
Walker America
And that's a wrap on this Bitcoin Talk episode of the Bitcoin Podcast. Remember to subscribe to this podcast wherever you're watching or listening, and share it with your friends, family and strangers on the Internet. Find me on noster@primal.net walker and this podcast@primal.netcoin on X, YouTube and Rumble. Just search at Walker America and find this podcast on X and Instagram. Itcoin Podcast. Head to the Show Notes to grab sponsor links. Head to substack.comwalkeramerica to get episodes emailed to you. And head to bitcoin podcast.net for everything else. Bitcoin is scarce, but podcasts are abundant. So thank you for spending your scarce time listening to the Bitcoin podcast. Until next time, stay free.