1 year ago
This is simply a transcribed excerpt of the “Bitcoin Magazine Podcast,” hosted by P and Q. In this episode, they are joined by Obi Nwosu to speech astir the quality betwixt Fedimint and Fedi and however Chaumian Mints tin beryllium utilized to onboard millions of radical onto bitcoin.
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Q: How did the thought of Fedi — what inspired you and the squad to say, “Hey, this is the problem. How are we gonna lick it? And past this is however we’re gonna lick it.”
Obi Nwosu: There’s Fedimint and past there’s Fedi. So Fedimint is this open-source protocol, a spot similar the mode Bitcoin is simply a protocol for the store oregon value. Lightning is simply a protocol for the transportation of that bitcoin astir astatine a debased outgo astatine precocious speed, and besides accrued privateness arsenic a broadside effect. Well, Fedimint is simply a protocol for storing that value, custodying that worth with unthinkable privateness successful a mode wherever you are utilizing your assemblage to person each other’s backmost effectively. They enactment truly good together. Effectively, they’re some Layer 2. When your money’s astatine rest, you store it successful Fedimint, and erstwhile your money’s connected the move, you usage Lightning. But the wealth is bitcoin underneath some of those.
That’s the Fedimint protocol.
That really had its roots — good actually, if you spell mode backmost 39 years we person Chaumian ecash and past 13 years oregon truthful agone with the invention of Bitcoin and past 4 oregon 5 years agone with Blockstream’s popularization of federation exertion utilized for Liquid. When those things were combined, a fig of unthinkable cypherpunks and cryptographers recovered we tin harvester these things unneurotic and instrumentality Chaumian ecash — invented by David Lee Chaum successful 1983, which was considered catnip for cryptographers, immoderate of the champion signifier of privateness exertion retired determination — harvester it with the champion signifier of money, bitcoin, which for the archetypal clip aggregate radical could hold, and federations allowed you to benignant of federate this Chaumian Mint with bitcoin arsenic the backing wealth arsenic opposed to U.S. dollars which was David Chaum’s archetypal attempt.
Work started 3 oregon 4 years agone and determination were a fig of projects moving successful parallel, but my present co-founder Eric Sirion was moving connected 1 called Fedimint. About 2 oregon truthful years ago, Blockstream saw it, got truly excited astir it, started sponsoring him, and astir a twelvemonth ago, I saw it erstwhile I was — and I didn’t notation this, I ran the U.K.’s longest-running bitcoin exchange. At 1 constituent I had 70% marketplace stock of the U.K., did the full New York Stock Exchange gavel. And we were the archetypal regulated speech successful Gibraltar, each that benignant of stuff. But that's the past now. But portion selling that company, I was looking for a mode of getting radical disconnected exchanges due to the fact that I was getting progressively acrophobic that determination would beryllium liquidity begets liquidity, and there’s gonna beryllium expanding centralization astir exchanges.
I could spot this benignant of Orwellian aboriginal wherever there’s fractional a twelve exchanges, each with a cardinal users with afloat visibility, conscionable arsenic atrocious arsenic having CBDCs (central slope integer currencies) by countries due to the fact that this is wherever we’re gonna extremity up if we conscionable transportation connected the mode we’re going. So we needed an alternate to custody connected exchange.
Now, the evident alternate is first-party custody, i.e., do-it-yourself custody, but if you conscionable look astatine the numbers and if you look astatine the cognition of the radical that we recognize that with the champion volition successful the world, you’re gonna get 5% of people, possibly 10% [doing] aforesaid custody, but that inactive leaves 90-95% trapped successful these exchanges.
So I was looking for a solution to get radical disconnected exchanges. I was astatine Hackers Congress past year. I bumped into Eric. We had a conversation. I suggested immoderate of my ideas. He politely told maine wherefore they wouldn’t enactment and past I asked him what helium was moving on. He told maine astir Fedimint and helium saw it arsenic this unthinkable privateness technology, which it is, but with my exchange-operator chapeau on, I realized that this was really a solution to getting radical disconnected exchanges — if architected correctly. That’s wherever I started getting involved, I started cheerleading it and I talked astir it astatine Bitcoin Miami. That led to Alex Gladstein asking maine to spell to Oslo Freedom Forum to speech astir it more.
I past met immoderate of the bravest men and women I’ve ever had the accidental to meet, who are quality rights defenders and activists from astir the world. You whitethorn person met, similar if you get to Ghana, anticipation you were there, you’ll spot Farida Nabourema from Togo, for example, Fadi Elsalameen from Palestine, Roya Mahboob from Afghanistan, who created the archetypal Afghanistan each women’s robotics squad erstwhile women weren’t allowed to survey and truthful connected and truthful forth, and the database goes on. They were each realizing that the problems and the challenges they were having astir the world, whether it was Latin America, Africa, oregon post-Soviet regions of the world, though they seemed precise different, and the authoritarian regimes that they were battling against, seemed precise diverse, they each had a communal thread: Those groups utilized weaponized wealth and done high/hyper levels of ostentation and galore different mechanisms. They realized that if they wanted to propulsion backmost against these forces, they needed to beryllium capable to power their ain money. So they weren’t Bitcoiners, but they came to Bitcoin due to the fact that they needed to lick problems, but they were moving into scaling issues.
They wanted to rotation these retired to millions of radical astatine accelerated standard successful aggregate of these regions. And what I realized determination was that lone Fedimint could bash that. This was successful May. It went from, Fedimint is an incredible, open-source protocol that we were supporting and letting organically grow, but I came backmost connected June 1, talked to — and present the co-founders person grown to myself, Eric and Justin Moon, different unthinkable soul. I explained what I’d seen and observed and who I talked to, and we each agreed that we request to accelerate this. And truthful Fedi was born. Fedi’s nonsubjective is to instrumentality Fedimint arsenic the basal protocol and to accelerate the adoption of bitcoin to billions of users implicit the coming years due to the fact that we cannot wait. We person a exertion that allows for the accelerated rollout of bitcoin with unthinkable levels of privacy, precocious levels of information and nonstop integration with Lightning. So wherefore are we waiting? There’s nary crushed why. And that's wherever Fedi’s travel started.
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