“Bitcoin doesn’t need more believers. Bitcoin needs more understanders.”

Shadrach & Gigi take a walk in Madeira. Recorded during SEC-07.

Listen on sovereignengineering.io

Projects & tech mentioned:

• Archipelago (sovereign home node and mesh network platform)
• Archipelago Foundation
• Archipelago promo video
• AtoB (interoperable service protocol, co-authored with Jesus)
• Angor (Bitcoin-native crowdfunding; Archipelago placed 2nd in the Angor pitch contest)
• Podcasting 2.0 (open podcast ecosystem)
• #DeMu (decentralized music on Nostr)
• Fountain (podcasting app with value-for-value)
• castr.me (Nostr-to-RSS podcast feed)
• Indie Hub (independent film distribution on Archipelago)
• Plebeian Market / Shopstr / Conduit (Nostr marketplaces)
• Zap Store (Nostr-based app store)
• White Noise / MLS / PICA (encrypted messaging on Nostr)
• Fedimint (federated eCash)
• Cashu (eCash on Bitcoin)
• Framework (modular laptop hardware)
• Meshtastic / Meshcore (mesh networking)
• Start9 / Umbrel (existing node platforms)
• SyncThing (decentralized file sync)
• GrapheneOS (privacy-focused Android)
• Rayhunter (EFF’s cell-based surveillance detection)
• Tollgate (mesh network toll gates)
• Bitchat (mesh chat, bitchat.free)
• Spilman channels (unidirectional payment channels for nano-sat streaming)
• John Vervaeke (the universe is dialogical)

People mentioned:

• Sir Spencer (venue npubs, live streaming)
• Duh Laurien (#DeMu)
• Oscar Merry (Fountain)
• Fountain
• Adam Curry (Podcasting 2.0 godfather)
• Joe Martin (value-for-value musician)
• Zaza (Archipelago builder)
• Martti Malmi (Nostr VPN demo)
• Gzuuus (encrypted state machines, AtoB protocol)
• Cøbdørz (balloons)
• Tollgate (mesh network toll gates)
• Bugle

In this dialogue:

• The episode opens discussing the podcasting 2.0 publishing workflow: AI models can now generate the XML spec, value splits and all, from a simple instruction
• Spencer’s idea: every venue gets an npub, the venue starts the live stream rather than the artist, creating a proper mapping from real-world locations to cryptographic identities
• Shadrach’s #DeMu journey: tried to orange pill Austin musicians, but they were too disillusioned to believe music could be monetized directly. Pay-to-play venues, Spotify killing label revenue. No traction at all.
• Value for value as social signaling: free-to-play games make millions from cosmetic skins. We still don’t do anything like that on Nostr. Adam Curry gets it – his listeners aren’t listeners, they’re producers.
• Shadrach’s path: punk rock DIY ethos to sysadmin, industrial Bitcoin mining in Texas (2017-18), briefly a crypto hedge fund (“That sounds terrible. That’s two words.”), S9 miners sold for scrap metal
• The Meshtadel: a network of citadels meshed together. Any node can be taken out and the system routes around the failure. The name means both literal mesh networks and communities connecting in a mesh topology.
• “I’m here to orange pill the Amish”: Shadrach moved to Lancaster, PA for food security, rented a farmer’s market stall just to talk about Bitcoin. The Amish save in dollars, didn’t raise prices through COVID, are partly a gift economy. The most insulting thing you can do is give exactly the same gift back.
• Printed Cashu certificates: Shadrach’s dream is physical eCash notes the Amish can trade at the market, then drive their horse and buggy to a Bitcoin bank drive-through to redeem them. Fedimint stability pools make this more feasible now.
• “Bitcoin doesn’t need more believers. Bitcoin needs more understanders.”
• Archipelago: a sovereign home node built on Framework laptop hardware. Plugs into your TV, runs a dashboard, companion app, modular and upgradeable. Scalable from a simple home node all the way to a community server.
• Indie Hub partnership: watch independent films on day one. Directors upload movies, set their own pricing schedule, everything distributed via paid torrents. “Make torrents great again” is a recurring theme at every SovEng cohort.
• The reversed marketplace: instead of broadcasting what you sell (which leaks privacy and enables enforcement), broadcast what you want to buy as an encrypted blob on Nostr. Agents match buyers and sellers. Your daughter looks for a lamp, gets three offers, never buys a rug she didn’t need.
• “Salespeople will hate it.” – “I know.”
• AtoB protocol: Shadrach co-authored it with Gzuuus to make ride-sharing apps (Ridester, Drivester, Trotter) interoperable. Two devs refactored their entire packages in a day using AI.
• Gzuuus’s encrypted state machines for commerce: requests, responses, agreements, work done. Wraps up ride sharing, package delivery, online sales into one framework.
• Web of trust is Nostr’s killer feature: people wrote about it in the seventies, PGP signing parties never caught on, but Nostr makes it natural because the social graph is the web of trust
• Nostr VPN: every device gets an npub, devices find each other the same way people find each other on Nostr
• Nostr clicked for Shadrach immediately after growing up with PGP. In his last job in international finance, they still used PGP for sharing sensitive information.
• SovEng experience: “the most incredible experience I’ve ever had in my life” and also “some of the most exhausting mentally, physically, socially”
• On retirement: moved to Lancaster thinking he’d chill out, immediately started driving to meetups and flying to check on a beef ranch in Oklahoma. “I give up.”
• The universe is dialogical: podcasts as time capsules, searching for truth by speaking it out loud. Karl Popper, David Deutsch, the longest chain wins.
• “We are back again in the early days. And we just have to make it work.”

Recorded at 943,357.