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When our government printed trillions of dollars, a lot of people in America stood there and said,
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hey, wait a minute, my money is being devalued.
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This week, I'm joined by Vic Sharma from Cake Wallet, a cryptocurrency wallet with 1.2 million
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users. And just the week we recorded, his own bank froze his account for a $90 transfer to his own
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company. And that was a great Trojan horse for a lot of things we discussed today. Regarding if you
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actually control your money. What is the scam aspect of cryptocurrencies and what's more
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legitimate, the privacy implications of this, what it means for the broad digital rights fight.
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And it was also great to catch up with my old boss, Vic, from before when I was at CakeWallet.
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So let's go ahead and start where he did with a Coinbase account that got killed over a darknet
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pharmacy order and how that one moment is basically the whole reason everything that
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CakeWallet's done exists to this day. Let's get into it.
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Hello, everybody. I want to welcome on Vic Sharma from Cake Wallet. He was my old boss. And so I want to be upfront about that. But I also want to say that we are fully independent. So I'll still push back on you, Vic, here and there and try to get some good answers out of you on how Cake Wallet works and what brought you to the space. So do you want to properly introduce yourself here?
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Sure, yeah. Thanks for having me on. I am the founder and CEO of CakeWallet. Launched in 2018. It's been a fun ride. It's crossed a million users and downloads. I think that was two months ago. So probably like 1.2 million now or something. So yeah, it's been fun. Yeah, we miss you. We miss you at CakeWallet. Doors always open.
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Yeah, no, I appreciate hearing that. And it was a very fun company to work for. I think I might have still been there when we hit a million, actually. So that was really cool to see.
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Yeah, do you mind kind of going through the journey? Because I joined quite late in this process. So you said way back in 2018. First off, CakeWallet is a cryptocurrency wallet.
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So do you want to touch on maybe what got you into the cryptocurrency space in the first place?
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And then what inspired you to actually create a wallet?
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And also for anyone who's already tuned in going, I don't know how I feel about this cryptocurrency stuff.
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How would you maybe settle some of those concerns also as you tell this story?
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Well, I could probably explain what clicked for me.
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And maybe that message will help people appreciate what cryptocurrencies can do.
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I've been in the steel industry my whole life.
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Even though I've been in the steel industry, I'm like a techie at heart.
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I'm always tinkering.
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I love to learn about new stuff that's happening in the tech world.
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And in 2012, I guess, I heard about Bitcoin.
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And it's kind of in the back of my mind, hey, I got to see what this is all about.
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It sounds pretty cool.
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And then in 2013, I had some time because the steel industry was super slow.
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I would sit in my office and watch YouTube videos trying to understand Bitcoin.
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and I started hanging out at the Bitcoin center here in Manhattan near Wall Street.
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There used to be a Bitcoin center.
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And, you know, just learning about it in 2013, it just clicked for me.
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And what clicked for me, which I think is still the most important thing about Bitcoin,
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is the permissionless and decentralized nature of owning and transferring value.
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And that's all it is.
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And that's the most important.
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And that's why it was invented.
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After the financial crisis that happened in mid-2000s, Satoshi Nakamoto...
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Why do you see that as important?
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We need some form of money, some form of value that can't be screwed with, that can't be fucked around with.
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And I believe that was one of the reasons Bitcoin was invented.
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And that's still a selling point of the importance of it.
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And then along with that comes the, since it's decentralized, then that makes it permissionless.
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You have a permissionless way to store your wealth and to transfer your wealth.
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You're not going to a third party.
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And like I said, that just clicked for me, especially with what happened in mid-2000s.
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And I just jumped on the bandwagon.
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I bought a couple of miners off of eBay, ASIC miners, in 2013.
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I ran them in my basement for about a year and a half.
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I did pretty well.
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Then around 2017, early 2017 or late 2016, I tried buying antibiotics.
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I've told this story many times.
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Maybe some of your users, listeners have heard it.
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And I sent, I bought antibiotics off the darknet.
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And naive me sent Bitcoin directly from my Coinbase account to a darknet market address.
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And they killed my, Coinbase killed my account immediately.
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And that got me down the path of, you know, how did they know and trying to understand chain analysis and the transparent nature of Bitcoin.
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But at the same time, there was on AlphaBay, there was a coin called Monero.
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And I thought, why?
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What is this Monero?
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Why not Litecoin or Ethereum or other coins that are big at that time?
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And what I did in 2013 with Bitcoin, that happened in around 2017 with Monero, early 2017, early 2016, I don't remember.
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And then at the same time, I saw there is no Monero wallet for the iPhone.
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And I saw the value of Monero, the privacy nature of Monero, and I wanted it in my phone.
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A lot of my projects start that way.
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It's just I want something.
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And I started building it in late 2017.
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mid-2017, and we launched in January 2018. To my surprise, I guess not really, because a lot of
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times I think when I want something, there must be other people out there that want the same thing.
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So I guess I was pleasantly surprised that my belief came true, that yes, people loved it. People
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started downloading it, and that was the birth of KickWallet.
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Yeah, it's cool how you're able to kind of, the ability to act on something when you
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notice it's missing is something that I feel like is quite common in a lot of the founders
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that we've spoken to on the podcast. It's a really cool trait.
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For somebody who's listening to this, they might be going, especially if they're not already in the cryptocurrency
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space, they go, okay, but I can just send someone PayPal or Zelle or
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Venmo. Maybe they don't care as much about the philosophical
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arguments that you brought up, which might
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be completely valid, but let's say someone's like, I don't care.
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I buy groceries, I get a paycheck, that's just my day-to-day life, and I send money via Venmo.
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Where do you see cryptocurrency kind of comparing to that?
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Do you mind expanding a little bit more on how you see this value applying to a regular person?
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Yeah, I think about that a lot, actually.
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And maybe because of what happened in mid-2000s, maybe people my age or maybe 10 years younger,
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Because of those events, they see the value in the permissionless and decentralized payment system, Bitcoin.
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I guess you don't realize you need it until you need it.
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When your payment gets stopped on PayPal or Venmo or Cash App or whatever, then you'll need it.
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I mean, this week I formed a new company and I tried transferring funds.
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I did a wire from my own personal account into this new company account and Chase froze both accounts.
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And it was $90 I was transferring, right?
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So from me to my own company, and I had to call and be on the chase, explain to them what this $90 payment was for.
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You know, am I being forced to send this payment?
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Did I get a text message?
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So I guess, yeah, you're not going to need it until you need it.
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That would be my answer.
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And you've already seen that with, you know, donations, dissidents and rebels or whoever, you know, freedom fighters, you know, their bank accounts getting frozen.
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their money supply being choked.
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So I know it's hard to sell this concept to somebody in the U.S.
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because we're comfortable.
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Nothing like that really happens that much.
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But you've seen it happen all around the world
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and under different governments.
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So yeah, you don't need it until you need it.
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I think there's a lot of parallels to what you're saying with privacy
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because it's kind of the same thing.
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People don't realize they need privacy until now they're on the wrong end
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of whatever current administration
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and what surveillance technologies they're implementing.
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And now people are, and we've seen this in the last year or two, a lot of people are getting more and more concerned about surveillance around the world.
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And so we've been seeing a huge uptick in our content.
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Lots of privacy services are also seeing a pretty similar uptick.
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And I feel like it's a similar thing where people don't realize they probably want a little bit more control of their data or their finances until something actually hits them hard enough.
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You started with Monero, but I know even at my time there, a lot of my time was actually not, you know,
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Obviously, it was still Monero, because you spent years building up that reputation of being a Monero-only wallet, which is privacy-only, if you want to maybe speak on the differences between coins here in a second.
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But I really want to understand the broader philosophy you have for CakeWallet.
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And for anyone who's a Monero maxi, they only care about Monero.
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How are they supposed to grapple with you expanding beyond Monero?
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And if you had to set the record straight, what do you actually envision CakeWallet being so people have proper expectations?
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Yeah, where should I start?
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First of all, I think we live in a, I don't think we do,
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we actually live in a multi-coin world,
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just as you live in a multi-fiat currency world.
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Forget about the philosophy or the features of each coin,
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but for whatever reason, people have their favorites.
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Some people want Monero, some people want Bitcoin,
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some people want Litecoin.
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So number one, we wanted to give that flexibility to our users.
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Initially, I'll be honest with you, initially we added Bitcoin
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because that was a very easily accessible coin, right?
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It still is probably the most accessible cryptocurrency.
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And I'm not afraid to say it.
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I'm a Bitcoiner as well.
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I love Monero and that's my preferred form of payment,
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whether paying out or receiving funds.
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But I'm a Bitcoiner as well.
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So initially the idea was to add Bitcoin as an easily accessible coin
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and people could convert to Monero very easily or convert back to Bitcoin.
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Initially that was the idea.
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But as we kept improving the Bitcoin wallet, the Bitcoin features, we started seeing that a lot of people are just using the wallet for Bitcoin.
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And of course, there's no way for us to see that. This is just by users reaching out to us or comments on social media or support tickets.
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And then, you know, this whole concept of multi-coin world started to hit more and more.
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And then we added, of course, Litecoin and Ethereum and then a bunch of EVMs and Solana as well.
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Other privacy coins like Xano.
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And then we added privacy features for Bitcoin, for Litecoin.
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I mean, I think coming from that privacy ethos from the beginning, if there is a privacy feature for a L1, we will be the first to jump on it and experiment with it.
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Like we did with silent payments, right?
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You were here when you were at Cake, when you did silent payments.
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Nobody had done it before.
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It was still actually, I think the PR wasn't even merged yet, right?
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It was just a Bitcoin proposal, right?
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So your other question, like how would, you know, people who are only into Bitcoin or people who are only into Monero, why would they use Cake Wallet?
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Well, you can use Cake Wallet only as a Bitcoin wallet.
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You can use it just as a Litecoin wallet.
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Just don't create the other coins.
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So unlike other wallets, you don't get all the other wallets by default.
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You actually have to create each one.
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So just don't create it.
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And your seed or private keys will never ever be used on any other,
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for, I shouldn't say on, for other chains.
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And a lot of people do.
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I mean, I'll go to conferences and I'll see somebody using CakeWallet
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and I'll talk to them and they're like,
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yeah, I just use it for Bitcoin.
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Or yeah, I just use it for Litecoin.
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And they don't even touch the Monero part,
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which I find interesting because we obviously launched as a Monero,
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first Monero-only wallet.
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But yeah, I think CakeWallet is for everybody.
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You can use it the way you want.
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We try to keep it flexible.
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I mean, you were here.
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We always used to talk about it needs to be simple enough
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for a totally non-techie person to download and start using it
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and then have loads and loads of hidden settings for advanced users.
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And I think I counted them one day.
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I think there's like 120 different settings.
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you can have for different things.
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My first question here regarding the technical stuff,
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you said you can just create your own wallet, right?
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If you only want to use Bitcoin, just create the Bitcoin wallet,
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don't even touch the other ones.
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I know Twitter has different views about everything in the world.
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So a lot of people are like, yeah, but the code is still in the app.
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So do you see that as a philosophical criticism
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or do you see that as an actual technical criticism?
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Like having another chain possible in the app is a concern.
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Yeah, it's definitely, I don't think it's a valid technical argument because the code,
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if you don't create a Bitcoin wallet, for example, that code is never accessed and it's never run.
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Only if you actually create a wallet is that code needed.
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So if you never create a wallet, the code just lies there dormant.
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I mean, at least for Monero people, right?
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We have the Monero community.
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We have a Monero only wallet called Monero.com.
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So if you're really paranoid, yeah, Monero users usually are very paranoid and rightly so.
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We do have Monero.com they can use.
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But there's been no instances like, hey, I created a Litecoin wallet and I got a Monero transaction.
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It's just impossible.
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And we've built Cakewall very modularly.
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So everything is very, the code is very separate, especially for like a Monero or Bitcoin or Monero or Litecoin.
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So I don't think it's a technical concern.
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I think, like you said, it's a philosophical concern.
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And look, I've been at conferences.
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I was at a conference late last summer.
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And somebody said to me, like, I don't want dirty Monero on my wallet.
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You know, sometimes I get annoyed.
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Sometimes like, oh, yeah, I get it.
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You know, I don't want to argue with people.
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00:14:27,300
But that day I was feeling a little annoyed.
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00:14:35,200
And I said, well, you know, every Bitcoin you have can probably be traced back to the, what was it called?
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00:14:39,040
Silk Road or, you know, something, you know, some nefarious activity.
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00:14:40,880
I said, you already have a dirty coin.
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But I was annoyed.
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I mean, I get his point
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And some people don't want to see that
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00:14:51,760
I mean, even we're at, what is it called?
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00:14:54,400
The Bitcoin conference in Lugano, Seth and I went to
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00:14:57,620
And somebody there on stage said, I love K-Quala
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00:14:59,940
But I won't use it because I don't want to see those other coins
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You can hide them
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It is quite tribal in some ways in the space
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00:15:13,980
Which is funny, because I think most coins overall have pretty similar goals.
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They just have a slightly different implementation that they think would achieve it.
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But I think secretly they use K-Qualit.
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But these million users came from somewhere.
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It can't be all Monero users.
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00:15:33,080
You mentioned something earlier, which is we can't see that.
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Can you speak to the telemetry or lack thereof and what that looks like in the app?
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So yeah, we don't collect any data when you're using the wallet.
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So that's one.
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00:15:50,840
I mean, when you go to the App Store or Google Play and you scroll down, it says what this
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app collects.
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It will say this app collects no data, nothing.
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00:15:56,400
So that's number one.
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Number two, we don't have it.
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00:16:00,280
And that's because when you create a wallet, you're creating it directly on the blockchain
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and not through you.
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00:16:01,560
Exactly.
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Exactly.
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00:16:06,020
We don't run a server where anything is being relayed.
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00:16:12,680
you're connecting directly to, you do, you know, by default, we give cake nodes, but again, that's
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00:16:17,380
a node. That's not like a server with information, right? But right at the beginning, you can choose
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00:16:21,660
another node. You can add your own node. So you don't even have to, that's one of the advanced
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00:16:25,820
features that I mentioned earlier. So you don't even have to use our node if you're paranoid.
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00:16:30,240
All the scanning is done, especially for Monero, all the scanning is done on your phone.
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00:16:37,760
We're not sending your view key to a light wallet server somewhere to scan the blockchain and send you back your transactions.
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00:16:44,320
It's actually going the other way where all the blocks are being downloaded to your wallet since your last sync.
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00:16:51,800
And then on your phone, you're scanning for looking for your transactions and all the transactions that don't belong to you are discarded.
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00:16:53,700
And the ones that are yours are saved.
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00:17:00,440
So, you know, we try to be very cognizant of where somebody might question something.
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00:17:04,560
hey, why are you doing this? Why are you doing that? And I mean, you were at Cake, we debated
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00:17:10,280
stuff like that all the time. You know, even when you're doing swaps, you're dealing directly with
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00:17:17,459
the swap provider. If you're using, you know, MoonPay or XLX or ChangeNow or whoever, Trocador
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00:17:22,579
and Cake Wallet, you're not going through our server. By the way, I recently found out another
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00:17:30,640
very popular so-called privacy wallet does have a server and I'm not going to say their name. I
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00:17:35,400
And they do, all the swaps do go through the server before going to the provider.
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00:17:40,460
So, yeah, which I was kind of shocked to learn.
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00:17:41,200
But we don't do that.
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00:17:43,440
You know, of course, that's on the wallet side.
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00:17:49,900
Of course, if you're doing fiat on-ramp or on-ramp or off-ramp and using on-ramp or MoonPay,
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00:17:55,740
of course, then you're connecting with them and then you're giving them whatever information they require.
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00:17:58,200
But again, it's not going through our server.
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00:18:00,620
We're not seeing that any information.
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00:18:05,280
And it's impossible for us to see that information because there's no server.
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There's no relay going through us or anything like that.
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00:18:11,480
I think our users value that.
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00:18:13,580
And we are held to that standard.
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00:18:15,280
And honestly, I get annoyed sometimes.
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00:18:17,960
Like, hey, how come this wallet is not being called out for this?
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00:18:19,940
How come that wallet is not being called out for this?
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00:18:22,540
And I get, like, why are we always under the microscope?
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00:18:26,120
And then I realize that's why people like us.
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and they want us to continue to uphold those principles.
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So it's good.
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00:18:35,560
It keeps us honest, keeps our community very tied in.
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Yeah, overall, it's a good thing.
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Keeps us on our toes for sure.
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00:18:43,900
Between conferences, events, and yes, sometimes also vacation,
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00:18:45,540
I travel a lot.
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00:18:49,500
But no matter the purpose, I always hit a very familiar experience,
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00:18:51,640
which is the eSIM wall.
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I literally just want to get online after I land,
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00:18:57,220
And I've already shown my passport to everybody just to fly.
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00:19:00,460
And I don't think I should have to upload it to another online service.
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00:19:00,610 -->
00:19:04,660
And that is exactly what PikaSim solves, the sponsor of this episode.
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00:19:05,020 -->
00:19:11,560
PikaSim is changing the game with anonymous eSIM, which means no accounts, no email, no name, and no KYC.
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00:19:15,420
It covers 190 plus countries, so it actually works wherever you go.
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00:19:20,300
And unlike almost everyone else, they actually label what routes through China, Hong Kong, and Russia,
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00:19:23,200
which many providers, I didn't know this before learning about them,
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00:19:23,440 -->
00:19:26,500
actually route through those people without ever telling you.
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00:19:26,820 -->
00:19:27,780
Yes, you heard that right.
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00:19:28,000 -->
00:19:31,040
A lot of eSIM providers has your data running through
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00:19:31,170 -->
00:19:35,280
some of the most surveillance-heavy places on Earth without your consent.
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00:19:35,730 -->
00:19:37,780
But with PikaSim, you get to choose.
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00:19:38,020 -->
00:19:39,900
And if you care about controlling your payment method,
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00:19:40,080 -->
00:19:41,560
which is probably why you're listening to this,
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00:19:41,590 -->
00:19:46,520
you can pay in Monero or Lightning through their own self-hosted payment processor with no middlemen.
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00:19:46,860 -->
00:19:49,780
This is the same exact private money that Vic and I are talking about
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00:19:49,800 -->
00:19:52,540
used in the real world for a privacy-first service.
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00:19:52,900 -->
00:19:55,920
Pekasim can't solve every privacy problem on a cellular network.
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00:19:56,460 -->
00:20:01,080
Nothing can, but it's an instant massive upgrade over nearly every other travel eSIM.
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00:20:01,200 -->
00:20:06,500
They support Panero, a Warrant Canary, iOS, F-Droid, and a direct APK that needs no Google
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00:20:06,760 -->
00:20:10,880
account and works on GrapheneOS and de-Googled phones, all without them ever knowing who
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00:20:10,880 -->
00:20:12,400
you are at a competitive price.
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00:20:12,600 -->
00:20:14,840
Head to pikasim.com slash tech lore.
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00:20:15,140 -->
00:20:19,320
That's P-I-K-A-S-I-M dot com slash tech lore.
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00:20:19,600 -->
00:20:22,960
That'll get you 10% off whether you pay with card or crypto.
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00:20:23,360 -->
00:20:24,520
All links are in the description.
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00:20:24,850 -->
00:20:27,020
And I don't think you'll be disappointed next time you travel.
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00:20:28,420
Thank you, Pekism, for sponsoring.
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00:20:28,670 -->
00:20:30,120
And now back to Vic's interview.
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00:20:32,820
Can you give me, this is a big ask.
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00:20:36,160
I know this is not an easy one, but in the interest of time, because I have a lot I want
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00:20:38,880
to touch on today, but I do think we should touch on some of the technologies.
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00:20:46,779
So in under five minutes, are you able to break down the privacy concerns of a typical
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00:20:50,960
blockchain and where something like chain analysis fits into that equation.
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00:20:56,560
And kind of the general approaches for just the main cryptocurrencies and how they deal
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00:20:56,900
with that.
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00:21:01,860
So I'm thinking Silent Payments, MWeb, Monero, and Zcash kind of as the main four.
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00:21:07,680
If you can quickly kind of just cover those so that we can follow up on questions from
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there.
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00:21:09,380 -->
00:21:10,820
Yeah, I mean, I'll be honest with you.
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00:21:18,980
I'm trying very hard to understand Zcash and, you know, compared that to full chain membership proofs, which is coming out from Monero.
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00:21:24,520
I was talking to some experts, you know, like experts on cryptography in the Monero world.
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00:21:25,060 -->
00:21:28,400
And they finally said to me, they said, you know, maybe you should take a course in cryptography.
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00:21:31,000
So I can speak.
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00:21:31,900
It's technical stuff.
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00:21:33,600
It's technical stuff.
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00:21:33,700 -->
00:21:33,800
Yeah.
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00:21:33,960 -->
00:21:40,480
So I'm not a, you know, I'm not a cryptographer, but let's just talk about Bitcoin first.
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00:21:41,020
Do you agree?
332
00:21:41,540 -->
00:21:42,200
Yeah, go for it.
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00:21:42,300 -->
00:21:45,960
Silent payments is a very cool concept.
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00:21:48,280
You've heard in Bitcoin, they always say,
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00:21:48,540 -->
00:21:49,960
don't reuse an address.
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00:21:50,420 -->
00:21:53,440
So what that means is if I want to send you Bitcoin, Henry,
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00:21:53,820 -->
00:21:55,300
I have to ask you,
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00:21:56,120 -->
00:21:58,700
hey, can you generate a fresh Bitcoin address
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00:22:00,060
and send it to me?
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00:22:00,480 -->
00:22:04,020
And then Joe Schmo wants to send you Bitcoin now.
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00:22:04,800 -->
00:22:06,520
They reach out to you and you generate
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00:22:06,820 -->
00:22:08,780
another Bitcoin address for them.
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00:22:09,140 -->
00:22:14,220
And that's just a privacy thing that you're doing manually, right?
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00:22:14,390 -->
00:22:17,640
So that way, when I send you Bitcoin to address A, let's call it,
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00:22:17,790 -->
00:22:20,460
I can't see what you're doing in address B
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00:22:24,340
until one day you consolidate those outputs.
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00:22:24,750 -->
00:22:27,560
And then somebody can figure out, oh, that belongs to you.
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00:22:27,860 -->
00:22:30,660
So what Silent Payments does is simplifies that whole process.
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00:22:31,360 -->
00:22:33,260
So with Silent Payments, you get one address.
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00:22:33,540 -->
00:22:35,260
Henry gets one address you create.
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00:22:35,470 -->
00:22:37,160
And you can create many if you want to.
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00:22:38,120 -->
00:22:43,480
Now you can give that same address to me and same address to Joe Schmo, right?
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00:22:44,020 -->
00:22:49,300
When I want to send you Bitcoin now, every time I use your silent payment address,
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00:22:49,680 -->
00:22:55,880
a new on-chain address will be created for you that only you can access with your private key.
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00:22:56,140 -->
00:23:00,040
And on the same thing, even though you've given that same silent payment address to Joe Schmo,
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00:23:00,920 -->
00:23:07,200
every time he uses that in CakeWallet, a new on-chain address will be generated for you every single time.
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00:23:07,360 -->
00:23:10,660
So even if I use it again, a new address will be generated.
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00:23:10,790 -->
00:23:13,700
So every time everything's separated, I'll only be able to see,
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00:23:14,140 -->
00:23:16,380
of course, I know what that address is that's generated,
360
00:23:17,250 -->
00:23:18,480
but that's all I can see.
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00:23:18,610 -->
00:23:21,880
So the use case for that is, let's say you're taking online donations.
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00:23:22,520 -->
00:23:25,060
Rather than putting a regular Bitcoin address where everyone can see,
363
00:23:25,200 -->
00:23:27,220
hey, this guy's receiving all these donations.
364
00:23:28,010 -->
00:23:31,700
And from who and from what addresses, silent payments,
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00:23:32,280 -->
00:23:35,539
every time somebody makes you a donation, they're getting a fresh new address
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00:23:35,700 -->
00:23:37,260
that's generated on the sender side.
367
00:23:37,460 -->
00:23:38,680
That's the beauty of silent payments.
368
00:23:38,850 -->
00:23:41,760
That address is generated on the sender side wallet,
369
00:23:41,990 -->
00:23:43,280
like Cake Wallet, for example.
370
00:23:43,470 -->
00:23:45,060
So it's a nice little privacy feature.
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00:23:45,580 -->
00:23:48,500
At least it stops people sending you money
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00:23:50,140
from seeing all your activity.
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00:23:50,470 -->
00:23:52,520
They can only see what they're doing.
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00:23:53,060 -->
00:23:54,860
So I think it's a really important feature.
375
00:23:55,260 -->
00:23:56,260
There's drawbacks to it.
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00:23:57,040 -->
00:23:58,200
Again, at the synchronization,
377
00:23:58,820 -->
00:24:02,739
it requires sync every time from your last sync
378
00:24:03,460 -->
00:24:05,700
to look for transactions that are related to you.
379
00:24:06,500 -->
00:24:07,220
That's the downside,
380
00:24:07,540 -->
00:24:09,260
but I think it's a small price to pay
381
00:24:09,420 -->
00:24:10,920
for some Bitcoin privacy.
382
00:24:11,340 -->
00:24:12,300
PayJoin version two.
383
00:24:13,240 -->
00:24:14,760
I know I'm going to get a lot of people
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00:24:14,840 -->
00:24:15,220
going to be writing,
385
00:24:15,280 -->
00:24:16,520
and Vic doesn't know what he's talking about,
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00:24:17,000 -->
00:24:18,720
but I'm just trying to simplify it.
387
00:24:19,440 -->
00:24:21,160
I had to write the blog article
388
00:24:21,500 -->
00:24:22,720
for PayJoin v2 at Cake,
389
00:24:23,420 -->
00:24:27,940
and it took me five iterations
390
00:24:28,360 -->
00:24:29,660
of totally different analogies,
391
00:24:29,720 -->
00:24:32,500
and I still to this day don't quite understand it.
392
00:24:32,600 -->
00:24:35,200
it is a very difficult concept to understand.
393
00:24:35,540 -->
00:24:37,460
It's like a two-person coin join, right?
394
00:24:37,550 -->
00:24:39,760
Where you're collaborating with the receiver.
395
00:24:40,140 -->
00:24:43,340
So if I'm sending you Bitcoin, we're both putting in some input.
396
00:24:43,940 -->
00:24:44,580
That's how I understand.
397
00:24:44,630 -->
00:24:45,700
I'm probably simplifying it.
398
00:24:46,120 -->
00:24:48,380
Obviously, it's way more technical than this.
399
00:24:48,570 -->
00:24:51,100
So by doing so, you get some privacy.
400
00:24:51,660 -->
00:24:53,960
Because they don't know the origin of who sent the...
401
00:24:53,980 -->
00:24:54,440
Exactly.
402
00:24:54,820 -->
00:24:55,300
Yeah, exactly.
403
00:24:55,880 -->
00:24:55,960
Yeah.
404
00:24:56,220 -->
00:24:58,320
Litecoin MWeb, I think it's great.
405
00:24:58,370 -->
00:24:59,740
I don't think it gets enough credit.
406
00:25:00,160 -->
00:25:02,640
Litecoin implemented a kind of like a side chain.
407
00:25:02,650 -->
00:25:04,380
I hate to call it a side chain, but yeah.
408
00:25:04,500 -->
00:25:13,320
So it's like a side chain, I guess, where you can take your transparent Litecoin and hide it in this other layer and do transactions with there.
409
00:25:13,350 -->
00:25:16,640
And you can live there forever, like Lightning, for example.
410
00:25:16,840 -->
00:25:21,280
You move your Bitcoin to another layer and you can live there forever if you like.
411
00:25:21,690 -->
00:25:23,580
So yeah, I think MWeb doesn't get enough credit.
412
00:25:23,710 -->
00:25:26,500
I think it's a great privacy tool.
413
00:25:27,640 -->
00:25:28,900
It works very well, in my experience.
414
00:25:29,220 -->
00:25:30,040
I agree.
415
00:25:31,000 -->
00:25:33,020
It works well, and we try to support it.
416
00:25:33,160 -->
00:25:35,080
I mean, you know, we try to support any privacy features,
417
00:25:35,360 -->
00:25:37,400
but I would like to see that grow more as well.
418
00:25:37,960 -->
00:25:39,020
I mean, some people would argue.
419
00:25:39,120 -->
00:25:41,120
I mean, in Zcash and Monero, people would argue,
420
00:25:41,300 -->
00:25:43,880
well, you're giving people a false sense of privacy,
421
00:25:44,100 -->
00:25:45,980
but maybe sometimes it's good enough for some people
422
00:25:46,680 -->
00:25:47,540
and for what you're doing.
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00:25:49,480 -->
00:25:51,520
Zcash, I mean, you know my history with Zcash.
424
00:25:51,620 -->
00:25:54,680
I mean, I've been a fan of the tech for a long time.
425
00:25:54,740 -->
00:25:55,780
I wouldn't say a long time.
426
00:25:55,860 -->
00:26:00,600
Ever since they did Orchard or Halo, whatever they call it, they got rid of the trusted setup.
427
00:26:01,620 -->
00:26:04,080
And I was like, OK, yeah, this makes sense now.
428
00:26:04,820 -->
00:26:08,640
But I mean, I know the organization, dev tax, blah, blah, blah.
429
00:26:09,220 -->
00:26:10,280
The whole thing's kind of weird.
430
00:26:10,620 -->
00:26:11,880
I shouldn't say weird.
431
00:26:12,860 -->
00:26:16,040
I would say some people maybe like it or dislike it.
432
00:26:16,040 -->
00:26:20,540
They like more of the Monero, cypherpunk, no centralized entity.
433
00:26:21,240 -->
00:26:24,959
It's funny I say cypherpunk because I sold that Twitter account to Gemini
434
00:26:25,120 -->
00:26:26,680
when they started the Cypherpunk
435
00:26:27,530 -->
00:26:28,740
ETF, or not ETF,
436
00:26:29,000 -->
00:26:29,460
Treasury Company.
437
00:26:30,870 -->
00:26:31,820
Did you know that? That was me?
438
00:26:32,520 -->
00:26:32,600
No.
439
00:26:35,420 -->
00:26:36,780
I guess not many people knew,
440
00:26:36,900 -->
00:26:38,280
but yeah, I was at Cypherpunk.
441
00:26:38,280 -->
00:26:40,140
I do know you collect every handle and domain,
442
00:26:40,620 -->
00:26:42,580
and any good one on Telegram
443
00:26:42,670 -->
00:26:43,480
is taken from you.
444
00:26:44,100 -->
00:26:45,020
Yeah, exactly.
445
00:26:45,980 -->
00:26:48,680
If you want a cool handle, it's probably Vic on the other end.
446
00:26:49,520 -->
00:26:49,660
Yeah.
447
00:26:50,640 -->
00:26:52,400
And I also sold them Zcash.com.
448
00:26:52,700 -->
00:26:54,040
I was the owner of that as well.
449
00:26:54,240 -->
00:26:56,140
I mean, societyonmonero.com.
450
00:26:56,370 -->
00:26:58,580
I know there's tribalism between the two communities.
451
00:26:59,040 -->
00:27:01,940
And jokingly, I say I'm the uniter of the two communities.
452
00:27:02,380 -->
00:27:06,260
And I've bashed Zcash in the past, and I've bashed other coins as well.
453
00:27:06,460 -->
00:27:07,900
But I think it's an important tool.
454
00:27:08,020 -->
00:27:12,260
I mean, I think if you just purely look at the tech, I think it works.
455
00:27:12,760 -->
00:27:14,760
If you stay shielded to shield it, it works.
456
00:27:14,920 -->
00:27:17,080
But again, when it comes down to, if you ask me today,
457
00:27:17,320 -->
00:27:19,080
hey, Vic, I want to send you some money, what do you want?
458
00:27:19,140 -->
00:27:20,040
I would probably say Monero.
459
00:27:20,380 -->
00:27:22,200
But if you say, no, I don't have Monero, I only have Zcash,
460
00:27:22,320 -->
00:27:23,640
I'm like, okay, that's fine.
461
00:27:23,820 -->
00:27:27,220
If you say I only have, I don't know, what wouldn't I take?
462
00:27:28,180 -->
00:27:28,820
I'm trying to think.
463
00:27:29,660 -->
00:27:30,440
What was the reception?
464
00:27:30,720 -->
00:27:32,440
Because that's kind of past my time.
465
00:27:32,640 -->
00:27:34,240
You all released Zcash.
466
00:27:35,060 -->
00:27:36,920
And I know a little bit of the history here,
467
00:27:37,020 -->
00:27:39,040
which is you kind of wanted to release Zcash,
468
00:27:39,120 -->
00:27:41,380
but then the Monero people flipped out on you,
469
00:27:41,640 -->
00:27:43,500
and then you decided not to release it back in the day.
470
00:27:44,180 -->
00:27:45,740
And then you decided to release it anyway,
471
00:27:46,140 -->
00:27:47,680
I think years later, pretty recently.
472
00:27:48,440 -->
00:27:49,380
What's been the reception?
473
00:27:49,640 -->
00:27:57,280
You also, the release just happened to align right when Zcash and their team went through all their crazy stuff with their official wallet.
474
00:27:57,760 -->
00:28:01,740
Yeah, I mean, a lot of people are saying we did it because the price pumped and all that.
475
00:28:01,900 -->
00:28:06,000
But, you know, Zcash wallet is not something you just whip up in a day.
476
00:28:06,300 -->
00:28:08,660
It's complicated and like Monero was.
477
00:28:09,140 -->
00:28:09,960
It was crazy timing.
478
00:28:11,260 -->
00:28:12,600
Yeah, the timing just happened to be.
479
00:28:12,680 -->
00:28:15,080
I mean, that always happens to me.
480
00:28:15,090 -->
00:28:15,720
I don't know why.
481
00:28:15,940 -->
00:28:17,200
But it was in works for a while.
482
00:28:17,560 -->
00:28:22,660
Personally, I would have liked for it to come out earlier in 2026, but we were just too busy with other stuff.
483
00:28:23,340 -->
00:28:25,040
But the review has been mixed.
484
00:28:25,200 -->
00:28:28,540
I mean, I think the Monero community has kind of softened up a little bit about it.
485
00:28:28,680 -->
00:28:32,540
They can still use CakeWallet the way they want without creating other coins.
486
00:28:32,840 -->
00:28:35,920
You can switch over to Monero.com if you just want Monero only.
487
00:28:36,280 -->
00:28:42,780
So the backlash wasn't as harsh as it was, let's say, five years ago when we wanted to do it, four years ago when we wanted to do it.
488
00:28:42,860 -->
00:28:44,120
That was pretty harsh.
489
00:28:44,880 -->
00:28:46,220
I've talked to you about it before.
490
00:28:46,600 -->
00:28:51,080
is kind of hurtful with everything we do for Monero.
491
00:28:51,260 -->
00:28:52,960
And we've had a long history with Monero.
492
00:28:53,110 -->
00:28:56,000
And we consider ourselves to be the Monero community,
493
00:28:56,520 -->
00:28:58,280
card-carrying Monero member.
494
00:29:00,280 -->
00:29:03,480
And then on the Zcash side, the reception has been mixed as well.
495
00:29:03,920 -->
00:29:06,600
A lot of people said, you've been bashing Zcash for so long.
496
00:29:06,760 -->
00:29:07,940
Why should we trust you?
497
00:29:08,880 -->
00:29:10,100
And it's not about trust.
498
00:29:10,280 -->
00:29:13,200
It's open source out there, ready for anyone to use.
499
00:29:13,380 -->
00:29:15,180
I think we're the best Zcash wallet out there.
500
00:29:15,420 -->
00:29:17,820
I think we're the best Monero wallet out there by far.
501
00:29:18,100 -->
00:29:19,800
I think we're the best Bitcoin wallet out there,
502
00:29:19,980 -->
00:29:21,260
especially now we added Litecoin.
503
00:29:21,840 -->
00:29:22,520
Sorry, Lightning.
504
00:29:22,920 -->
00:29:27,140
I think we're the best Bitcoin wallet.
505
00:29:27,740 -->
00:29:29,900
I was going to mention this earlier, not to butt in,
506
00:29:30,040 -->
00:29:31,700
but when you mentioned donations,
507
00:29:32,240 -->
00:29:32,960
you probably don't know this,
508
00:29:33,080 -->
00:29:35,760
but we used to support Bitcoin donations for Techlore.
509
00:29:37,120 -->
00:29:39,020
We used to support Bitcoin and Monero,
510
00:29:39,320 -->
00:29:42,440
but I got rid of Bitcoin because the more I learned about Bitcoin,
511
00:29:42,640 -->
00:29:45,180
the more I realized I didn't care because it's our wallet.
512
00:29:46,659 -->
00:29:48,880
but everyone who donated Bitcoin to us,
513
00:29:48,940 -->
00:29:50,600
I can't guarantee they were aware
514
00:29:51,060 -->
00:29:53,160
of the implications of that.
515
00:29:53,600 -->
00:29:55,060
And I don't think people think about that.
516
00:29:55,200 -->
00:29:57,220
If you're a politician, if you're a public figure
517
00:29:57,360 -->
00:29:59,880
and you have a public donation for a Bitcoin address,
518
00:30:00,340 -->
00:30:01,700
you're not able to guarantee
519
00:30:02,540 -->
00:30:03,840
that everybody who's contributing to you
520
00:30:03,860 -->
00:30:05,280
is actually kept confidential.
521
00:30:06,060 -->
00:30:07,600
And that is a bit of a risk.
522
00:30:07,640 -->
00:30:09,820
And so when you all started working on silent payments
523
00:30:10,980 -->
00:30:13,260
and I was like, oh, this is kind of a perfect solution.
524
00:30:13,360 -->
00:30:17,160
We still don't support it because the silent payments, people who support silent payments
525
00:30:17,300 -->
00:30:17,980
is still very little.
526
00:30:18,240 -->
00:30:21,740
It's pretty much just CakeWallet and still one or two other wallets at this point.
527
00:30:22,600 -->
00:30:27,020
And so I really want to see more wallets support silent payments because otherwise, only CakeWallet
528
00:30:27,040 -->
00:30:27,420
users are...
529
00:30:28,100 -->
00:30:31,920
It almost seems like a CakeWallet exclusive feature, even though it's something that anybody
530
00:30:32,020 -->
00:30:32,660
can roll out.
531
00:30:32,960 -->
00:30:37,140
I think a lot of wallets worry about user experience.
532
00:30:37,980 -->
00:30:41,840
They don't want people to worry about scanning and this and that.
533
00:30:42,060 -->
00:30:43,920
A lot of people just want to use Bitcoin very simply.
534
00:30:44,300 -->
00:30:47,900
And then silent payments, I mean, you only get privacy on the receiver side.
535
00:30:48,000 -->
00:30:49,820
Like you as a receiver get privacy.
536
00:30:50,920 -->
00:30:54,620
But you're able to see everything about the sender's wallet.
537
00:30:55,920 -->
00:30:57,300
So I agree with you.
538
00:30:57,580 -->
00:30:58,160
It's not perfect.
539
00:30:58,400 -->
00:31:03,000
It's good receiver privacy if you're taking donations or just payments in general.
540
00:31:03,360 -->
00:31:04,940
So yeah, I fully agree with you.
541
00:31:05,140 -->
00:31:08,680
If you want to do something online like that, use Monero or use Zcash.
542
00:31:09,620 -->
00:31:10,460
Shield it, of course.
543
00:31:11,040 -->
00:31:13,060
I wanted to transfer over a little bit to Cupcake.
544
00:31:13,250 -->
00:31:16,220
Do you want to explain what Cupcake is, how it works with Cake Wallet,
545
00:31:16,320 -->
00:31:20,340
and how you would compare and contrast it with the other alternatives out there?
546
00:31:20,500 -->
00:31:21,440
I'd say the hardware alternatives.
547
00:31:22,440 -->
00:31:26,640
Yeah, so Cupcake is a companion app to Cake Wallet.
548
00:31:27,360 -->
00:31:29,660
And I hope other wallets implement it as well.
549
00:31:29,920 -->
00:31:33,820
It's an offline signing app.
550
00:31:34,220 -->
00:31:37,960
So just as you have the hardware wallet where your keys, your private keys,
551
00:31:38,940 -->
00:31:43,740
live on another device that's not connected to the internet. This is the same concept. So
552
00:31:44,200 -->
00:31:48,800
if you have an old phone laying around at home, you don't have to go out and buy a hardware wallet
553
00:31:49,160 -->
00:31:54,140
or some specialized hardware. You have an old phone laying around, you download Cupcake on it,
554
00:31:54,460 -->
00:32:00,320
disconnect it from the internet, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, everything, cellular, and you create a wallet.
555
00:32:00,490 -->
00:32:06,720
And now you have a offline hardware signing device. What I really liked about this idea was,
556
00:32:06,960 -->
00:32:10,260
especially what happened with some hardware wallets where, you know, data was leaked,
557
00:32:10,620 -->
00:32:16,680
who the buyers were. I mean, even today I get text messages and email from fraud people saying,
558
00:32:16,920 -->
00:32:21,760
you're, you need to call us. I get those too. I was, I think caught in that breach because I still
559
00:32:21,800 -->
00:32:25,720
get emails. And then, and then the other thing is, you know, if you're, if you're crossing borders
560
00:32:26,240 -->
00:32:32,099
or if you get stopped or, or even just within friends and family, or this, someone sees that
561
00:32:32,120 -->
00:32:33,720
you have a physical hardware wallet,
562
00:32:34,080 -->
00:32:35,680
it's like a huge arrow.
563
00:32:35,920 -->
00:32:36,480
Me, me, me.
564
00:32:36,700 -->
00:32:37,720
I own crypto.
565
00:32:37,980 -->
00:32:38,560
I own crypto.
566
00:32:38,760 -->
00:32:40,980
But if you have a second phone in your bag
567
00:32:41,140 -->
00:32:42,980
or wherever and it's just laying somewhere,
568
00:32:43,220 -->
00:32:44,540
nobody knows it's a hardware wallet.
569
00:32:45,200 -->
00:32:45,980
Just think you're a drug dealer.
570
00:32:47,820 -->
00:32:49,760
Second phone or, yeah, I have a second phone.
571
00:32:49,860 -->
00:32:50,580
You think I'm a drug dealer?
572
00:32:52,200 -->
00:32:53,620
No, I have a second phone too.
573
00:32:53,740 -->
00:32:56,240
But that's the comment that I get from people
574
00:32:56,480 -->
00:32:57,640
when I whip out two phones
575
00:32:58,260 -->
00:32:59,940
and they go, oh, like,
576
00:33:00,680 -->
00:33:01,640
that's what everyone thinks.
577
00:33:01,800 -->
00:33:02,500
like, oh, you're a drug dealer.
578
00:33:02,620 -->
00:33:04,320
It's like, well, no, one's more for work.
579
00:33:04,480 -->
00:33:05,340
One's for, yeah.
580
00:33:06,520 -->
00:33:10,260
Well, for me, I carry iPhone and a Pixel
581
00:33:10,640 -->
00:33:12,900
and just because I'm testing CakeWallet all the time,
582
00:33:13,180 -->
00:33:15,540
you know, new updates and new builds
583
00:33:15,720 -->
00:33:17,520
that the dev team is sending me.
584
00:33:17,680 -->
00:33:18,620
But going back to Cupcake,
585
00:33:18,780 -->
00:33:20,220
so that was the idea behind Cupcake.
586
00:33:20,400 -->
00:33:23,540
It supports Monero, Bitcoin, Litecoin,
587
00:33:23,960 -->
00:33:25,400
Litecoin MWeb as well.
588
00:33:25,480 -->
00:33:27,380
I think we're the only hardware wallet out there
589
00:33:27,380 -->
00:33:28,600
that supports Litecoin MWeb.
590
00:33:28,740 -->
00:33:31,160
We're adding Zcash Shielded to it.
591
00:33:31,360 -->
00:33:36,120
Yeah, I think it's a great tool just for privacy, even from not having to spend money.
592
00:33:36,600 -->
00:33:42,400
I mean, nowadays, everybody, almost everybody has an old phone laying around, an old iPhone that you forgot to trade in.
593
00:33:43,060 -->
00:33:46,940
And then the upgrade plan or you have an old Android or something from years ago.
594
00:33:47,320 -->
00:33:49,980
So, yeah, don't waste your money on buying a hardware wallet.
595
00:33:50,100 -->
00:33:50,900
Just all that.
596
00:33:51,080 -->
00:33:54,440
Having said that, I'm an investor in foundation devices.
597
00:33:54,700 -->
00:33:56,560
So don't buy any other wallets.
598
00:33:56,600 -->
00:33:58,180
Buy that one or use cupcake keys.
599
00:33:59,300 -->
00:34:03,000
Yeah, it's a good time because I actually just wrote down an interesting question.
600
00:34:03,140 -->
00:34:05,100
Because earlier we were talking about silent payments.
601
00:34:06,220 -->
00:34:11,360
And there's nuances to the level of privacy you're going to get from something like silent payments, MWeb, and Monero.
602
00:34:11,580 -->
00:34:14,220
And I think there's probably a similar thing with this.
603
00:34:15,040 -->
00:34:25,580
I don't think that you would say that using Cupcake, if you're comparing this tech, obviously you're probably less likely to be targeted if you don't buy a hardware wallet.
604
00:34:26,040 -->
00:34:27,240
We have those things.
605
00:34:27,419 -->
00:34:31,020
But if you just give to a hacker an old phone with Cupcake
606
00:34:31,080 -->
00:34:32,899
and you give them a brand new Ledger device,
607
00:34:34,080 -->
00:34:36,540
I don't know if you'd say that Cupcake is more secure
608
00:34:36,800 -->
00:34:37,440
than the Ledger device.
609
00:34:38,520 -->
00:34:42,500
So how do you balance marketing here as an organization
610
00:34:42,899 -->
00:34:45,540
with kind of, like you want to sell yourself
611
00:34:45,659 -->
00:34:47,600
and be like, yeah, we actually do have these really cool features,
612
00:34:48,640 -->
00:34:51,800
but we also don't want to overpromise the safety to our users.
613
00:34:51,940 -->
00:34:53,780
So how do you balance that from a marketing perspective?
614
00:34:54,940 -->
00:34:55,879
No, that's a valid point.
615
00:34:56,080 -->
00:34:57,900
And I think we're upfront with that, right?
616
00:34:58,080 -->
00:35:01,140
Look, it's definitely not as, I shouldn't say definitely not,
617
00:35:01,430 -->
00:35:07,640
probably not as secure as going out and buying a Passport Prime or a Ledger.
618
00:35:07,850 -->
00:35:09,800
But there's other factors, right?
619
00:35:10,060 -->
00:35:11,620
Do you want to be seen with a hardware wallet?
620
00:35:11,790 -->
00:35:13,700
Do you want to spend money on a hardware wallet?
621
00:35:13,830 -->
00:35:14,760
Do you have an old phone?
622
00:35:15,080 -->
00:35:18,280
Are you in what your situation is?
623
00:35:18,400 -->
00:35:20,580
I know different regions don't even get hardware wallets.
624
00:35:21,200 -->
00:35:21,360
Exactly.
625
00:35:21,490 -->
00:35:22,800
Some regions don't get hardware wallets.
626
00:35:22,900 -->
00:35:24,440
Some regions, crypto is banned.
627
00:35:24,720 -->
00:35:29,940
So if you're seen having a hardware wallet, that could be exposing yourself to some investigation.
628
00:35:30,420 -->
00:35:37,380
So it just depends on what your personal situation is, both your political climate that you're in or your financial condition.
629
00:35:37,780 -->
00:35:42,020
And I think for most people, Cupcake is good enough, especially the Western world.
630
00:35:42,980 -->
00:35:44,560
I mean, they say you shouldn't walk around.
631
00:35:44,760 -->
00:35:46,120
What if you get your phone confiscated?
632
00:35:46,360 -->
00:35:49,560
You shouldn't walk around with your private keys in your phone.
633
00:35:50,080 -->
00:35:54,680
So Cupcake's a good balance there where you can leave a phone at home, have a couple wallets on KDV.
634
00:35:54,700 -->
00:35:59,720
wallet one with some small money that you can spend regularly and where you have your savings
635
00:36:00,060 -->
00:36:03,780
account, as you may call it, which is connected to your cupcake. And in no way I'm saying we'll go
636
00:36:03,830 -->
00:36:09,840
head to head with hardware wallets. But I think it's more than just that. It's more than just,
637
00:36:09,960 -->
00:36:14,920
hey, a hardware wallet's more secure because in some ways it's not more secure because it exposes
638
00:36:15,050 -->
00:36:20,579
you to being a crypto holder. Yeah, I was using it more as an example. I guess just philosophically
639
00:36:20,860 -->
00:36:22,920
as a company, how do you view this?
640
00:36:23,700 -->
00:36:25,600
How can you signal to a user,
641
00:36:25,920 -->
00:36:28,340
hey, we have this really cool privacy feature for Bitcoin,
642
00:36:28,960 -->
00:36:31,220
but also if you want better privacy,
643
00:36:31,320 -->
00:36:32,920
there is also Monero in our wallet.
644
00:36:33,060 -->
00:36:35,480
How can you help guide the user to help understand
645
00:36:35,820 -->
00:36:38,500
the level of privacy they're getting with each tool that you're providing?
646
00:36:39,000 -->
00:36:42,240
Because cryptocurrency is already not very well understood by most people.
647
00:36:42,700 -->
00:36:44,320
Then we add these privacy tools that maybe
648
00:36:45,100 -->
00:36:47,760
a few thousand people in the world know very well.
649
00:36:48,300 -->
00:36:51,260
So how are you communicating that kind of nuance to beginners?
650
00:36:51,520 -->
00:36:52,720
How do you see that?
651
00:36:52,920 -->
00:36:54,760
That's tech lore's job, right?
652
00:36:55,220 -->
00:36:56,080
You're the educator.
653
00:36:56,480 -->
00:37:04,240
So I don't think we hit too much on that, except just saying, hey, if you want privacy, use Monero.
654
00:37:04,460 -->
00:37:07,540
If you want some privacy, go ahead and use Bitcoin silent payments.
655
00:37:08,100 -->
00:37:10,800
And of course, some would argue that Bitcoin Lightning provides privacy.
656
00:37:11,160 -->
00:37:11,780
It could be debatable.
657
00:37:12,120 -->
00:37:17,680
And what I found is that everybody has a different level of privacy that they need, especially in the Monero community.
658
00:37:17,860 -->
00:37:21,740
Some folks don't even want anyone to know that they own Monero.
659
00:37:22,260 -->
00:37:23,280
They'll never mention it.
660
00:37:23,620 -->
00:37:25,840
And I think those people are not on social media.
661
00:37:26,200 -->
00:37:26,840
They're not anywhere.
662
00:37:27,620 -->
00:37:28,420
They're not on Reddit.
663
00:37:28,820 -->
00:37:33,380
And then there's some people that are saying, hey, it's okay if Kraken knows I bought Monero.
664
00:37:34,640 -->
00:37:37,900
As long as nobody knows how I spend it or where it goes.
665
00:37:38,180 -->
00:37:40,820
So when we say privacy, I always think about that.
666
00:37:40,880 -->
00:37:42,880
Well, what level of privacy are you seeking?
667
00:37:43,260 -->
00:37:45,320
And that goes, again, with Bitcoin.
668
00:37:46,020 -->
00:37:49,120
And a lot of people still wrongly believe Bitcoin is private.
669
00:37:49,480 -->
00:37:56,000
And I guess if you never, you know, people say, oh, but if I never connected to a KYC exchange, they'll never know.
670
00:37:56,480 -->
00:37:58,300
But the idea is you can always backtrack.
671
00:37:58,540 -->
00:38:02,700
Eventually, you'll find a transaction that was connected to KYC.
672
00:38:02,820 -->
00:38:06,440
And then the authorities can grab that person and then keep tracking down.
673
00:38:06,540 -->
00:38:07,440
Who did you send this to?
674
00:38:07,540 -->
00:38:08,380
Who did you send that to?
675
00:38:08,460 -->
00:38:08,560
Right.
676
00:38:08,940 -->
00:38:12,560
My understanding, too, is the technology to track gets better over time.
677
00:38:12,580 -->
00:38:13,980
But the blockchain is always there.
678
00:38:14,100 -->
00:38:14,600
It's permanent.
679
00:38:15,000 -->
00:38:19,500
So there is no future obfuscation happening to those previous transactions either.
680
00:38:20,560 -->
00:38:22,160
Exactly, exactly, exactly.
681
00:38:22,620 -->
00:38:23,620
And we think about that a lot.
682
00:38:23,840 -->
00:38:30,560
Should we put in KQualit that, hey, you're about to use a transparent chain, but then, you know, we don't want to piss people off.
683
00:38:30,780 -->
00:38:39,040
Hey, I guess we rely on good educators like yourself to inform people on different levels of privacy.
684
00:38:39,460 -->
00:38:43,900
To zoom out and get a little bit less technical, we talked a little about censorship because
685
00:38:44,600 -->
00:38:48,140
you talked about how there's some regions where you can't even have cryptocurrency.
686
00:38:48,640 -->
00:38:54,600
We also talked earlier about having access to money and how that's kind of a tool of
687
00:38:54,780 -->
00:38:56,080
oppression in some regions, etc.
688
00:38:56,480 -->
00:39:00,540
Can you expand a little bit on how CakeWallet is censorship resistant?
689
00:39:01,500 -->
00:39:03,360
What are the tools that help guarantee that?
690
00:39:03,460 -->
00:39:08,000
Because if I'm just a regular person and I'm in a region that blocks cryptocurrency stuff,
691
00:39:08,180 -->
00:39:12,620
I probably can't just download CakeWallet from the Google Play Store or the App Store.
692
00:39:13,000 -->
00:39:16,600
So what does that look like for a user who wants to access these tools?
693
00:39:18,060 -->
00:39:22,040
So I guess if you're super, let's talk non-techie first, right?
694
00:39:22,160 -->
00:39:23,100
iPhone is difficult.
695
00:39:23,450 -->
00:39:28,840
If you are in a region that allows side loading, let's say, into the iPhone, then you're okay.
696
00:39:29,240 -->
00:39:33,480
You could find some build from us somewhere and download that, install that to your phone.
697
00:39:33,760 -->
00:39:37,740
If you're super technical, you can go to our GitHub and try to build from source.
698
00:39:38,160 -->
00:39:38,900
Those are a couple of ways.
699
00:39:39,240 -->
00:39:42,000
The other thing you can do, I mean, if you're on Android, then it's much easier.
700
00:39:42,300 -->
00:39:48,080
You can go to the alternate app stores or you can just download an APK from our GitHub and you're good to go.
701
00:39:48,500 -->
00:39:51,980
So even if we go away tomorrow, like I said, the source code is there.
702
00:39:52,180 -->
00:39:55,740
You can try building yourself or you can grab the APK from somewhere.
703
00:39:55,980 -->
00:39:56,700
Does that answer your question?
704
00:39:57,460 -->
00:39:57,540
Yeah.
705
00:39:57,880 -->
00:40:02,180
And I think, you know, in the interest of time, normally I'd like to ask you about reproducible builds and stuff like that.
706
00:40:02,320 -->
00:40:06,560
But what's still keeping you up at night to kind of really, really zoom out here?
707
00:40:06,700 -->
00:40:10,720
You know, when you look at the current situation, are you still concerned about privacy concerns?
708
00:40:10,910 -->
00:40:12,520
Are you looking at regulatory environments?
709
00:40:13,140 -->
00:40:15,980
Like what kind of keeps you up at night and what has you concerned?
710
00:40:16,840 -->
00:40:22,180
The regulatory environment doesn't concern me as much as it did, I don't know, seven years, six years ago.
711
00:40:22,540 -->
00:40:27,260
I think regulators and governments have realized that, you know, the genie's out of the bottle.
712
00:40:27,620 -->
00:40:28,640
It's not going away.
713
00:40:29,000 -->
00:40:36,460
There's billions and billions, maybe trillions of value that's being transferred in some form of cryptocurrency or another on a daily basis.
714
00:40:36,880 -->
00:40:38,320
and you can't turn that back.
715
00:40:38,600 -->
00:40:40,260
It's open source code.
716
00:40:40,470 -->
00:40:41,980
You know, just like in the beginning,
717
00:40:42,220 -->
00:40:43,640
people said Bitcoin is going to be banned,
718
00:40:43,720 -->
00:40:45,720
governments won't allow it.
719
00:40:46,080 -->
00:40:48,180
And it got to the point where it's just too big.
720
00:40:48,300 -->
00:40:49,340
You can't stop it.
721
00:40:49,460 -->
00:40:50,200
It's open source.
722
00:40:50,560 -->
00:40:53,740
So regulators and governments had to come up with a framework
723
00:40:54,880 -->
00:40:59,700
for Bitcoin to work with traditional banking or monetary systems, right?
724
00:40:59,960 -->
00:41:02,280
So I guess I'm not as pessimistic as some people are
725
00:41:02,600 -->
00:41:05,780
about privacy-oriented coins like Monero and others.
726
00:41:06,060 -->
00:41:07,160
I think the same thing will happen.
727
00:41:07,360 -->
00:41:09,060
It's open source.
728
00:41:09,320 -->
00:41:09,720
It's there.
729
00:41:09,920 -->
00:41:10,740
Anyone can write it.
730
00:41:10,750 -->
00:41:14,000
You can't arrest people for having code on their computer.
731
00:41:14,460 -->
00:41:16,940
You can, but it's not going to last very long.
732
00:41:17,190 -->
00:41:25,900
So I do think there will be regulations and framework where the traditional system has to work with privacy coins.
733
00:41:26,820 -->
00:41:28,460
Maybe that's just me being optimistic.
734
00:41:29,560 -->
00:41:34,280
I know every day you hear about Monero being banned in this country, this exchange dropping Monero.
735
00:41:35,080 -->
00:41:36,700
But we've been through that before.
736
00:41:37,480 -->
00:41:38,380
We've seen that with Bitcoin.
737
00:41:38,780 -->
00:41:40,220
So I think something has to happen.
738
00:41:40,300 -->
00:41:52,060
And if it doesn't, you're going to have this parallel underground economy that's working on a different currency that government and administration and regulators can't tap into.
739
00:41:52,380 -->
00:41:53,860
Do I know what that solution is today?
740
00:41:54,100 -->
00:41:54,680
I don't know.
741
00:41:55,300 -->
00:42:02,240
But I think over time, there will be creative ways to have a framework that'll work with Monero and privacy coins.
742
00:42:03,040 -->
00:42:04,360
Yeah, we got to get you back on.
743
00:42:04,520 -->
00:42:06,120
I mean, there's just so many questions I had.
744
00:42:06,220 -->
00:42:08,660
I wanted to talk about how you can still make Monero transparent,
745
00:42:09,100 -->
00:42:10,980
like it is transparent optionally,
746
00:42:11,220 -->
00:42:13,040
and how that could be a potential solution.
747
00:42:13,480 -->
00:42:16,200
I wanted to talk about the stability of silent payments
748
00:42:16,640 -->
00:42:18,100
and if that's improved over time.
749
00:42:18,180 -->
00:42:19,920
Because even when I was using silent payments at Cake,
750
00:42:20,060 -->
00:42:21,180
it was still a little bit rocky.
751
00:42:21,300 -->
00:42:22,760
So I wanted to see if that's been improved.
752
00:42:23,700 -->
00:42:26,620
So I have so many questions, so I got to get you back on.
753
00:42:26,800 -->
00:42:28,580
And we can dive a little bit more into the weeds.
754
00:42:28,860 -->
00:42:30,020
So to just kind of finish this out,
755
00:42:30,140 -->
00:42:31,840
how can people follow you, follow Cake?
756
00:42:32,020 -->
00:42:34,100
What's kind of where you send people to?
757
00:42:34,180 -->
00:42:39,040
So probably, I mean, cakewallet.com, if you want to learn more about Cake Wallet and see the download links.
758
00:42:39,880 -->
00:42:43,420
If you want just, you know, daily news and updates and all that, you can go to our Twitter.
759
00:42:43,700 -->
00:42:44,880
It's at Cake Wallet.
760
00:42:45,020 -->
00:42:48,060
If you want to follow me, it's Vikrant, NYC, my full name.
761
00:42:48,740 -->
00:42:50,180
V-I-K-R-A-N-T.
762
00:42:50,440 -->
00:42:51,420
Spicy takes on Twitter.
763
00:42:52,060 -->
00:42:52,460
NYC.
764
00:42:52,700 -->
00:42:53,260
Yeah, exactly.
765
00:42:53,840 -->
00:43:01,700
So it's funny, on Telegram, I'm Vikrant S being my initial of my last name, my first name and the last initial.
766
00:43:02,400 -->
00:43:04,380
And a lot of people thought it's Vic rants.
767
00:43:04,780 -->
00:43:06,660
It's like my rants.
768
00:43:09,060 -->
00:43:10,160
It's not far off, though.
769
00:43:10,500 -->
00:43:11,860
It honestly feels that way.
770
00:43:12,100 -->
00:43:15,340
I was actually telling Vic backstage before we recorded,
771
00:43:15,800 -->
00:43:18,760
because since I left Cake, I really haven't checked Twitter at all,
772
00:43:18,980 -->
00:43:20,840
because it's not something I ever really...
773
00:43:21,360 -->
00:43:23,520
I think I was pretty public about this with you.
774
00:43:23,560 -->
00:43:25,000
I was like, it was my least favorite part,
775
00:43:25,600 -->
00:43:26,860
was having to be on Twitter a lot.
776
00:43:26,920 -->
00:43:27,880
It just isn't my place.
777
00:43:29,440 -->
00:43:31,100
There's a lot of good information on Twitter still,
778
00:43:31,300 -->
00:43:33,340
but there's a lot of just nonsense too on Twitter.
779
00:43:33,480 -->
00:43:35,860
But your tweets are something I need to figure out
780
00:43:35,860 -->
00:43:37,300
how to get back in my RSS feed,
781
00:43:37,440 -->
00:43:38,440
because they are pretty spicy.
782
00:43:39,420 -->
00:43:40,220
No, sorry.
783
00:43:40,880 -->
00:43:41,900
I don't know if that's good or bad.
784
00:43:42,340 -->
00:43:42,880
No, it's good.
785
00:43:43,600 -->
00:43:44,100
Well, I don't know.
786
00:43:44,500 -->
00:43:47,160
I think PR is hard sometimes with your tweets,
787
00:43:47,420 -->
00:43:50,900
but being definitely on this end of it now,
788
00:43:50,960 -->
00:43:51,880
I think it's a lot better.
789
00:43:52,500 -->
00:43:54,440
Yeah, that's funny.
790
00:43:56,340 -->
00:43:57,000
Good, good.
791
00:43:57,640 -->
00:43:57,700
Excellent.
792
00:43:58,040 -->
00:43:59,540
Yeah, well, thank you, Vic, for coming on.
793
00:43:59,660 -->
00:44:00,900
Again, I'll try to get you back on.
794
00:44:01,060 -->
00:44:02,600
we can dive into more of the weeds.
795
00:44:03,170 -->
00:44:05,220
But I just want to thank you for the work that you're doing for Monero,
796
00:44:05,390 -->
00:44:06,320
for the privacy space.
797
00:44:07,010 -->
00:44:09,380
I know a lot of people have a lot of respect for what you're building out there.
798
00:44:09,490 -->
00:44:10,720
So I just wanted to send my appreciation.
799
00:44:11,500 -->
00:44:15,200
Yeah, and you had a big part in growing that.
800
00:44:15,270 -->
00:44:16,080
So I appreciate it.
801
00:44:16,600 -->
00:44:17,220
Yeah, of course.
802
00:44:17,600 -->
00:44:18,160
It's an important project.
803
00:44:18,350 -->
00:44:21,520
So I think if you guys don't do it, I hope someone else does
804
00:44:21,730 -->
00:44:24,480
because the tech that you're building needs to be out there.
805
00:44:25,559 -->
00:44:27,100
Cool. Excellent. Thanks, man.
806
00:44:27,580 -->
00:44:27,860
Yeah.
807
00:44:28,250 -->
00:44:29,820
And that's the main interview with Vic.
808
00:44:29,940 -->
00:44:31,960
A few things that I wanted to have as takeaways.
809
00:44:32,260 -->
00:44:36,840
I don't think that people need to pick a side in the Bitcoin versus Monero versus Zcash
810
00:44:37,060 -->
00:44:40,960
tribalism to get the actual lesson, which is that different privacy tools protect different
811
00:44:41,220 -->
00:44:42,160
pieces of the puzzle.
812
00:44:42,520 -->
00:44:45,960
And knowing which piece you're covered on is kind of the whole game.
813
00:44:46,120 -->
00:44:50,060
While I have my own feelings about Monero, I think being the best one for most people
814
00:44:50,160 -->
00:44:53,700
who want privacy, I see the place for these other tools as well.
815
00:44:53,760 -->
00:44:57,699
I also don't think you need to be under investigation or living somewhere hostile to start
816
00:44:58,220 -->
00:45:02,240
experimenting with these tools and seeing if they fit in your workflow. Vic talked about his own
817
00:45:02,520 -->
00:45:06,740
bank freezing story, but I've actually had the same exact issue with Chase specifically when I
818
00:45:06,860 -->
00:45:11,460
wanted to buy a used car and I just had to get my own cash out of Chase and they required all these
819
00:45:11,640 -->
00:45:15,780
crazy things just for me to withdraw my own money. And even then I had limits set. So it's something
820
00:45:15,780 -->
00:45:20,120
to think about, like who really owns your money when you don't own it yourself. And of course,
821
00:45:20,160 -->
00:45:24,259
I hope you all learned a little bit more about Vic and CakeWallet and what they're working on and
822
00:45:24,280 -->
00:45:29,720
what's next and kind of the nuances of Bitcoin privacy. If you guys have any guest recommendations
823
00:45:29,960 -->
00:45:33,620
going forward, let me know. I would love to hear. And if you enjoy these interviews, you can become
824
00:45:33,670 -->
00:45:38,420
a Techlorian down in the description and join our private signal group to chat with other like-minded
825
00:45:38,660 -->
00:45:43,600
people in the community. I want to thank the sponsor of this podcast as well. And I will see
826
00:45:43,640 -->
00:45:45,080
you all next time on Techlor.
827
00:46:14,200 -->
00:46:14,220
Субтитры сделал DimaTorzok
