By The Horns: A Bitcoin podcast about South Africa
By The Horns: A Bitcoin podcast about South Africa
EP63: The Sovereign Key - a quantum leap in Bitcoin OpSec
Order your Sovereign Key here
Discover the fascinating journey of Okin Tjangarero, the Bushveld Bitcoiner and Gemsbok Whisperer, as he shares his remarkable transformation from Bitcoin skeptic to advocate. This episode unravels Okin's unique story, starting from his roots in Windhoek, Namibia, through his educational experiences in Cape Town and China, and how financial pressures during the COVID pandemic shifted his perspective on digital currencies. Okin's encounter with Bitcoin is more than just a financial revelation; it intertwines with his passions for podcasting and music that have enriched his engagement with the global Bitcoin community.
Join us as we anticipate the upcoming Adopting Bitcoin Cape Town conference that promises to be a pivotal moment for integrating Bitcoin into circular economies and parallel institutions. The buzz from last year's event, where notable figures like Jimmy Song and Craig Raw sparked vibrant discussions, sets the stage for an even more impactful gathering this year. From insightful talks to social events like cocktail parties and sports competitions with Bitcoin prizes, this conference is not just about learning—it's about creating lasting connections in a relaxed and engaging environment.
In a world where digital sovereignty is increasingly critical, explore the innovative Sovereign Key, a USB device that transforms any computer into a secure Bitcoin terminal. For those who find dedicated devices financially inaccessible, the Sovereign Key offers a flexible and secure solution by leveraging tools like Tails, Linux and Sparrow Wallet. This episode delves into the practical applications of multi-signature accounts and pruned nodes, showcasing how the Sovereign Key empowers users with security and privacy. With a limited edition launch, early adopters will gain exclusive insights and connect with a community eager to harness the power of these tools.
Sovereign Key
Order your Sovereign Key here
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Hello and welcome to another episode of by the Horns, a Bitcoin podcast about South Africa. Today, I'm joined by Okun Changerewo to talk about his latest project, the Sovereign Key. The Sovereign Key is a suite of Bitcoin tools that exponentially increases privacy and security for its users. It's an inexpensive operating system that runs on a simple flash drive that can be booted from any Windows machine, turning it into a highly secure environment free from spyware, malware and other dangers to your staff. It allows you to transact complete security and privacy, adding a massive security boost to your opsec.
Speaker 1:Bitcoin Only is a proud sponsor of today's show, and it's also the only place on earth where you can presently get hold of a sovereign key. So if you want to order one of these highly limited early release devices, please click on the link below in the show notes. With that, over to Oken, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of by the Horns, and today we are joined by the prince of sand and sun, the Bushveld Bitcoiner and the Chemsbok Whisperer himself, euken Nikolai Chongerero. Welcome, very good to see you. That was a mouthful.
Speaker 2:Good to see you, Ricky. How are you doing, man?
Speaker 1:Good, I just want everyone to know that you asked me to do that intro. That's your official salutation.
Speaker 2:I think that's what we're going to tell people. We'll go with that.
Speaker 1:I like that one. Yeah, it's a good one. It's a good one. It took me a while to come up with it. Yeah, man, so we're actually both in Cape Town at the moment. Welcome, you are normally based in Vintook, namibia. It's good to have you down here.
Speaker 2:That's correct, I'm actually.
Speaker 1:Sorry, you were saying no, it's good to have you back down here on the Cape. Are you adjusting to the cold?
Speaker 2:no-transcript.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah, I mean the cool 25 degrees must be rough for someone from Namibia.
Speaker 2:I mean, you know, we're normally around a young 30s. Actually, I'm not going to lie to you. People are complaining about how hot it is right now back home and I'm like, hey, not my concern right now back home and I'm like, hey, not my, not like my concern right now.
Speaker 1:So so, oken, before we jump into like what we wanted to chat about today, do you mind telling us a bit about your background and like how you, how you came to find Bitcoin and where you are?
Speaker 2:today. Yeah well, somebody was trying to arrange for me from like back in 2012.
Speaker 2:So I originally I studied in Cape Town, like I did my honours degree distance through the University of Greenwich, but I was locally at CTI and that's how I studied to get my honours degree in business, international business administration. And then, from that, during that time, when I was coming to the end of that degree, one of my friends, ali, that dude, reached out and was like yo, let's form a hip-hop poetry group, which ended up being black vulcanite and, um, you know, one of the producers of that group, or like one of the producers we knew that we were getting beats and stuff from was becoming full, and becoming full was the guy that was trying to get me into bitcoin since like 2012. It's like yo, there's this thing called bitcoin, you guys should really look. And I was like, bro, I'm not trying to listen to this, I just want to record music and go ahead and do the rest of it.
Speaker 2:And then, 2016, I went to China to go do my MBA and then I came back 2018. And while I was in China, ethereum and stuff was taking off and guys were like, hey, there's these blockchain events you should come to. And I'm like I don't care about any of that, like I'm here to do my degree and like meet girls from all over the world.
Speaker 2:I'm not here for you guys and then COVID hit. Like just before COVID hit, I was already doing like voiceovers and stuff. And then COVID hit. None of us could leave and I had to send money to my brother just before COVID hit by a Western Union.
Speaker 1:Were you in China when COVID hit?
Speaker 2:No, no, no, I came back in 2018.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you didn't see those people, the fake deaths in the street, none of that.
Speaker 2:No, I wasn't in China for seeing anything. I can neither confirm or deny.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you still wouldn't get back in there. Let's not go down that rabbit hole.
Speaker 2:I'm just saying I don't know what's in circulation there, no, but yeah. So when I came back, I was here for a while.
Speaker 2:We were still moving around, and then COVID 2019, 2020, it hit. And then everybody got locked up. But just before it hit, I was still sending money, you know money to my brother who was in Dubai via Western Union, and the fees were murdering me, like not just the fees that Western Union charges, but printing of, like, you know, your documents and your six months bank statements and all of that. Every time you want to send, it becomes, it becomes a cost, and I complained about it and becoming full was like, bro, I told you years ago, bitcoin, bitcoin solves this. And I was like man, okay, well, let's see about this bitcoin thing, um, and then, you know, fell down the rabbit hole a bit, uh, started a podcast while I was still trying to learn about bitcoin uh started shit coining.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was a shit coiner for a while and I was a heavy winner, one of you guys talk to me about those coins.
Speaker 2:but, um, yeah, I was shit coining for a while and then I was like how do I really monetize my podcast? Because we started making, uh, some headway. We really started making some headway and we started ranking, you know, top 10 in South Africa, top 20 in Netherlands, ranking top 100 in France. So we started and I was like I got to make some money from this somehow. And then I started reading terms and conditions and, as it would learn, places like Spotify take your things and pay you when they want to, and things like that happen. But of course it goes into more.
Speaker 2:But yeah that's how I came to then seeing how do I monetize my bitcoin podcast or my podcast, which then became a bitcoin podcast, as I started monetizing via bitcoin so I became the first african or the first podcaster in africa uh continent wise to be paid in bitcoin while people were streaming my, my, yeah, my podcast. So, yeah, I was, I spoke, adam Curry, his podcast, great, great guy.
Speaker 2:And yeah, just more about podcasting, podcasting 2.0, how we can use that and then I implemented that and then from there I just continued going until we got easy sets and now Sovereign Key.
Speaker 1:Awesome, and so you are you. I mean, you're in Cape Town at the moment, but where are you based normally?
Speaker 2:Normally I'm based back home. When took Namibia, that's home. But yeah, I don't have any dependents, I don't have any debt, so I can go anywhere. It's kind of one of those things that you know. I have the freedom, and Bitcoin now allows me more freedom, even even more than now. I can literally work anywhere, get paid while I'm there and then just use the Bitcoin while I'm there. So I mean like here I use my Bitcoin on Ubers and.
Speaker 1:Uber.
Speaker 2:Eats, renting apartments to stay in and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're living totally on a Bitcoin standard. You're not getting any of your revenue in, not totally.
Speaker 2:You know, there's some places that you're like no, wait, what? I'm not taking Bitcoin. And I'm like yet You're not taking Bitcoin. Yet Okay, there's not a, I don't take Bitcoin, it's just you don't know how yet.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so coming up, we've got the Adopting Bitcoin conference next year, January next year, and you and I obviously both involved in that. Last year you came as a speaker and this year the committee decided that it would be great to have you on board on the committee with us, and so you and I are both doing co-emceeing this year, well, next year at Adopting Bitcoin. So, yeah, how are you feeling for that?
Speaker 2:I'm excited, I'm excited a bit too excited, yeah no man like personally, Cape Town's always a vibe and Bitcoiners in Cape Town wherever they're from like, from around the world. The conversations that you get into are pretty insane, to say the least, and you'll be having convos with guys like you never thought about, like I remember seeing jimmy song demolish like three straight steaks, like one after the other.
Speaker 1:he just kept going and I'm like he ate like one and a half kilograms of steaks straight bro, he's just going into the tomahawk like it's a fillet so no um no, that was amazing. Last year, when we went to that steakhouse and we got that room upstairs that could seat maybe like 20 people, we had like 100 people jammed in there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we were waiting for many people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was worried the floor was going to cave in. That was the vibe though it was.
Speaker 2:I mean, and that's the thing you meet people and have combos like, again, I was just, you know, some guy from namibia doing easy, sad stuff, and then it's like apply for a conference, speak at the conference, you know, of course, try to do well, um, and be what you're talking about. And then you know, as you meet with people, you're speaking with them and it's people whose tools you use. You're literally talking with craig raw about sparrow wallet while he's in. It's like yo, yes, let's keep going on about this topic. I like this topic talking, you know, with aqua wallets, people. You know, as you're moving around, it's, it's, it's mind-blowing, and I'm I'm very much looking forward to to doing it in a different space, especially the space that it's going to be in, and seeing the combos and collaborations that come from that definitely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, it's a high-signal conference and the fact that it's small means you really get to spend quality time with everyone and actually interface with everyone at the conference, have these conversations and, yeah, obviously we've seen what the speaker list is looking like this year and next year, so it's gonna be bigger and better than last year. We're uh, we're excited.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, definitely I think I think, um, especially because of well, I don't want to give anything away, but like the type of people that are speaking, like when we speak about, how do you build circular economies, how do you integrate things, how do you? Those are the. It's almost like a big workshop you know, where people get to speak, because you're literally going to learn so much.
Speaker 1:But um, yeah, let me not spoil anything yeah, yeah, and we've got non-bitcoiners there too, right, that was kind of the theme of last year was, uh, getting in the people building the parallel institutions. Um, so we've got some different parallel institutions from South Africa this time. We've got the biggest of big hitters coming in this year. Last year unfortunately couldn't make it, but he's going to be joining us this year and he is not a Bitcoiner Not really his forte. It's not that he's anti-Bitcoin at all, it's just like not on his radar.
Speaker 1:But this guy has built like the biggest parallel institution in South Africa and he's coming to the conference because they are interested and they're like well, we actually we understand that the state is going to be weaponized against us, you know, and it is already the writing's on the wall. And they're like how do we integrate Bitcoin? And then, more importantly, from our perspective as Bitcoiners, we can learn from these guys who've been building parallel institutions for 20 years in a non-permissive, adversarial environment, which is kind of what Bitcoin grows in. So how do you build things in the meat space in an environment where the government's trying to choke you out? And I think there's a lot to learn from these people. So, yeah, super exciting. And what I'm really excited for with the conference is all the side events. There's all these cool side things happening that people are setting up. So we've got the film evening happening. We've got cocktail parties going on at Wiggle. Did you go to Wiggle last year? The car hire.
Speaker 2:I did go to Wiggle. I went to Wiggle and I went to everything last year. The car hire I did go to wiggle, I went to wiggle and I went to the. Well, I went to everything last year.
Speaker 1:It's funny, so we're like there's a car hire, so like it's like a luxury luxury and like ferraris, lamborghini, stuff, and then they accept bitcoin right, the owners of mass.
Speaker 1:But when I don't want to dock him, but um, yeah, we're having a, we're having a cocktail we're having a cocktail event there, doxing, yeah, I mean, all the cars have got Wiggle number plates, so he's doxed, but yeah. And then there's a couple of cool sporting events that are coming up as well during the same time. So there'll be like a Bitcoin mountain bike event for the guys who are cycling, and there's rumors of a Bitcoin paddle event as well. So if anyone's into paddle, one of the local guys is organizing. They're going to set up like a play for sats basically, winner takes all in sats. So cool things, cool things happening.
Speaker 2:I do enjoy, like how organically things you know gravitate around Bitcoin events and I'm not going to say I'm not going to be taking part in a paddle event.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you and me neither, bro, we're going to be sitting on the side talking shit.
Speaker 2:We'll watch, we'll commentate.
Speaker 1:We're commentating.
Speaker 2:But if it's like table tennis, I might jump into that one.
Speaker 1:Zach, because you spent three years in China. Do you know how to play table tennis?
Speaker 2:I mean, I knew how to play before I went, but I'm not going to say it didn't improve yeah.
Speaker 1:Anyway. So conference is second last weekend of January, the weekend 23rd, 24th, 25th in that realm. I might be wrong slightly with the dates, but it's around there. Go to adoptingBTC I'm sorry, adoptingbitcoinorg and head to the South Africa conference. All the information is there. I'll put a link in the show notes. But yeah, all right, cool, so that's the conference. You've been busy building something over the last few months and I was lucky enough to get a sneak peek a few weeks ago when you were here in South Africa last, and then you went back to NAMM and you came back and brought me a finished product and a few of them and that is the sovereign key. Yeah, I've got one right over here, okay, and that's just normal flash drive. You'd say sorry, what's so cool about this and why is this flash drive important?
Speaker 2:all right, awesome, awesome. Firstly, thanks, uh, for being one of the first people to besides me to like, actually, like. It was weird just watching you use the sovereign key and it's not me using it and it's like oh, another person's actually using this.
Speaker 2:It's like it's amazing, basically, is what the name says it all. It's a key to your sovereignty, but what it does is it effectively makes any computer that you plug it into. It boots the operating system that is on the USB to then make that computer your computer. So right now, literally, when you plug in the sovereign key, you can either boot it into normal amnesia state of tails where you just continuously forget what you, what you've done on the drive when you plug it out, or you can put in the password for the persistent storage part. Once you, once you start it in that persistent storage part, that's where you get, you know, the pruned Bitcoin node. You get Sparrow wallet, which is attached already to that pruned Bitcoin node of yours. So you would be pulling directly from your own running on your device pruned node, and then, yes, you'd literally Hang on, hang on.
Speaker 1:So let me get this straight. So this thing lets you boot your own operating system on any computer, right? So you plug it in you, you boot it. Now you're not, let's say, it's a windows computer, right? You're no longer running windows, you're running the operating system that is on this device and this means you can effectively use that computer temporary, hijack it temporarily to run your own secure operating system with all of the apps and things you want to run in there. And it's got persistent storage because this is a 256 gig device, so you can access your files, et cetera on this device and then, when you're done, pull it out and leave no trace on that computer that you were ever there.
Speaker 2:Correct the computer that you were using as the interface will have no record that you know you were doing Bitcoin stuff or non-Bitcoin stuff when you use, when you're browsing, using your sovereign key. By default it uses Tor for everything. So you would use Tor browser. That's the default browser. So literally, it's think of it like tails, with the addition of many different Bitcoin tools on it, including like Bails, which is you know how. Firstly, we were able to get Bitcoin Core on there, and then it comes with its own Codex32 wallet, which basically allows, like Schnorr signals it's very a lot of different tools. Like you have things like Electrum wallet that, of course, comes with Tails. Then you have Sparrow wallet, which is another tool that, whether you're online or not online, allows you to sign transactions, create transactions. As you know, it's a very powerful desktop wallet. So what we did was, with the sovereign key, say hey, how do we give you all of this? In addition, we added books of the likes of the simplest Bitcoin book ever written by Kesa. We added the Bitcoin white paper, along with links to where you can get it in different languages On Xenominia, that's on the readme file you can get on the Sovereign Key readme file. Yeah, bitcoin for Businesses. There's a couple of books that we added in just to get you started.
Speaker 2:So this was always aimed at firstly being for getting children and school kids and young adults the ability to, firstly, not have to buy a brand new computer.
Speaker 2:So if you want to say, let me donate to a school, why are you buying computers that are like six to eight thousand rand a computer and every two to three years you're gonna have to update that computer for that child or that person that's getting it donated right, because it becomes obsolete. When you could just donate a lot of sovereign keys to the students themselves and then, wherever they find a computer, internet connected or not, they could still do their homework, they can still do their projects, and then they can still learn about bitcoin and how to use it with the tools on board to then utilize it when moving forward, um, without having to trust you know whoever, when they're, when they're using it, they're literally walking around with a bitcoin so you're saying that a school kid can get one of these because obviously this is cheaper than a computer and they can effectively share a computer with anyone and they don't have to have the computer configured to their own personal needs and have their own files and that stuff.
Speaker 1:You can just go and plug this in. All your stuff is there and you can use it as you need to. So you can basically you can hot desk on a computer, as it were.
Speaker 2:Well, yes, but there are certain limitations. So again, like the Apple is notorious with with just hating anybody, that's not them. So the M1 chips and above, you're not going to be able to use this on any of those devices. Some Intel Macs work, but again, that's what the caveat of Apple does, what they do.
Speaker 2:We have a whole list on the readme file of how you literally boot in. When you plug this into a device, the device has to be switched off. You'd plug the device in, right, you're plugging your sovereign key, you'd switch it on and then, as it boots up, you would hit the key that puts it into its bios mode, right, like it's boots up mode on f12, f12 most computers is f12 right, is what you would hit and you just tap it a few times and then it will get you into the mode to say where would you like to boot? From the hard disk, would you like to boot from a cd-rom drive, whatever? And you'll see usb. You just scroll down to you and click on that, because you are booting from the operating system on the usb, not the operating system on the hardware.
Speaker 2:Now, of course, depending on what hardware you have, of course, the more ram that the computer has, the better for you. You know, because when you plug it in, you will have to update or or catch up to the bitcoin chain, right to the tip of the chain, depending on when last you synced your device. Um, I've gone two weeks without syncing it. Plugged it into an eight gigabyte. You know, laptop, dell laptop, and it eight hours. You know, just left it overnight. But again, it depends on how you have your setup and how you want to go about it. But essentially, don't even think about sharing computers, think about internet cafes, right?
Speaker 1:What happens to all those libraries?
Speaker 2:don't even think about computers, think about internet cafes right, what exactly libraries? Like they have these computers already. Like it rejuvenates a couple of things that have been in in every or most neighborhoods and hopefully in most town centers and community halls where there's at least one computer and a child can go and say when I plug this out, you can come and use it next, and we're not going to mess up what's happening on the computer itself.
Speaker 1:And so importantly, this is running Linux right, so you're running this.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's running Tails. So the reason I decided like, so it's been a bit of a journey. It looks like it was just a couple of months, but it's been almost like a year and a bit of researching how to get this to go, almost two years, um, and then I found ben and and ben westgate and we were talking and a lot uh, shout out ben for really also teaching me a lot along the path of like, how to get to where I wanted to get, and, um, he was like look, there's, there's a couple of things you have to take into. That's also why, specifically, this usb is the one that we use. It does look sleek and everything, but it's also it's reading write speeds are great. So when you're, when you're trying to run bitcoin on it, it's not going to be sluggish. Now, your only factor is what is the hardware that you're plugging it into, and not it as the device. Um, as as such, um, so yeah, right.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about this for a second. For from a bitcoinist perspective, because the use case the use case of like being a school kid and having access to turning any computer as your own personal computer for the time that you're using it that's a great use case, right. But the use case I'm more interested in being a bitcoiner is how you'd use the sovereign key in a in a bitcoin scenario, and the way I understand it is, you don't know if your personal computer you're using is compromised or not. You have to assume it's compromised. So, therefore, when you're transacting with Bitcoin, you should be using air gap. You know, protect yourself against that. But, like you're constantly using your computer for other things, that is not Bitcoin.
Speaker 1:So, like you know, we often suggest to people that you should have, like a Bitcoin dedicated device if you really want to be secure, particularly when you're playing with your life savings, right? So, the way I understand it, the sovereign key gives you that ability without having to go and buy a new dedicated computer. You can do all your Bitcoin stuff on this and when you plug it out, you know that's it. So, and because it's running in its own standalone operating system and it's running in its own standalone operating system, um, and running in linux, um, it's much more secure than a windows machine. And you've got all the tools you need.
Speaker 1:You know, you've got a prune node, so you've got a bitcoin full node, even though it's pruned running on there, um, and you've got, you've got um sparrow running on there, uh, and a whole bunch of other tools you need as well. And, um, yeah, you're a for a way, and then, wherever you can use, be like it's on a mate's computer. You're right, like, can I choose a computer? I want to do a transaction like this in boots up. You get to go.
Speaker 2:Well, correct and a bit more, because you have to remember one of the main reasons of also adding Sparrow was because Sparrow interacts with literally every hardware wallet. Yeah, Like, whether you're using Coldcard, whether you're using SeedSigner, whether you're using Trezor, it interacts with all of them, the Gordian Seed Tool.
Speaker 1:Never seen one of those in the wild, but it's on Sparrow.
Speaker 2:Which one you say leisure the gordian, the gordian seed tool oh, you see, wow, I didn't even remember that yeah so exactly, you see what I mean like.
Speaker 2:So it's not just about sovereignty in the way of oh, I can use it on any computer. When you use it, what does it also allow you? Like, it allows you to touch so many other tools that you also have. You know whether you have a bit box. All of these things are also interusable with using your sovereign key. But, beyond it being Linux secure, it's Tails, right. Tails is like battle tested, battle tested. I mean, it's used by human rights activists, which, again, is why, like this is the type of thing that you could.
Speaker 2:Let me give you an example as a group of executives. If you guys go and you open a bank account for your company and let's say you're five individuals, they're going to tell you for this bank account to release funds, you're going to need signatures from two out of three individuals. That's a multi-signature account, right? Yeah, that's already multi-signature. People understand it. Signature account, right? Yeah, that's already multi-signature. People understand it. They just don't understand it. They get it now. If everybody has their own sovereign key right in that office, they would literally sign for a transaction from their sovereign key and you can.
Speaker 2:There's so much there's so many layers of security that you can go through right, because, firstly, how do you get into the persistent storage of the sovereign key? That's one password. How do you get into the persistent storage and it's not really that's one password. How do you get into your specific wallet on Sparrow? That's another password with the passphrase, if you want to.
Speaker 2:So you add in more and then you can say, hey, but also, even with this in there, this wallet of mine, I actually sign with my seed signer or my ledger or whatever. So it depends on how complicated or how secure whatever you want to make it. Of course, keep it simple. There's always the way you'd want to. But, um, I'm just saying for somebody to be able to take your sovereign key, plug it in and just hit, start tails and not see anything bitcoin affiliated. Or you put in your actual passphrase for the persistent storage and then release all bitcoin stuff to you, even though those things are possibly related.
Speaker 1:I want to dig into that a bit more, right? So if I were to, if I'm a malicious, if I'm fed, right, and I get hold of this flash disk, I'm like, okay, what's on this flash? And I plug it into my Windows PC, stick it in, and I go and search my file manager. Do I see on this, on this flash disk, nothing, nothing like empty. Or does it not even read it?
Speaker 2:oh, it doesn't, it won't, it won't, it won't, it won't show you anything because, remember, that is an operating system. It's like you haven't booted from it, so it's not. It doesn't register itself right.
Speaker 1:So then I'm a clever fed, so I go and boot from this right, plug it in to restart my machine. I press f12, goes to boot. I booted off this and I'm like, oh, here's something on here. What am I going to see?
Speaker 2:you're just going to see the welcome to tail screen and it's going to ask you if you want to start tails or if you want to put in the password for persistent storage. Now, if you hit start tails, it's blank tails, it's just tails.
Speaker 1:So it's like a seed signer where it's stateless right. It forgets everything you've done in the previous session.
Speaker 2:Unless you have your passphrase.
Speaker 1:For your persistent storage.
Speaker 2:So you need the passphrase to get in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you need the passphrase. Okay, so now I'm a sneaky fit and I've got your passphrase and I managed to get into. I managed to get into your sovereign key, so now I get in there. Okay, so now I'm like right, let's go to Sparrow. We want to see what we, what you've got here. So you try to load up a wallet file. Sparrow wallet files are password encrypted. You don't have that password. You're not getting into the wallet file, see anything. And because you're a clever bitcoiner, you are not using this as a hot wallet.
Speaker 1:Passphrase and passphrase thank you, so you're using it in air gap mode, with the seed signer, for example. So you've got a hard wallet that's air gapped. So you're interfacing with us on on your sovereign key. There's just so many layers of security. And because you're running it on linux, there's no. Your operating systems are spying on you and and feeding it all back to bill gates. Right, yeah, so the feds. So the feds are gonna have a tough time.
Speaker 2:Um, well, if they get old, well, when I said when I explained it to the one guy, he was like are you trying to get yourself killed? And I'm like no, why would you kill me for tools that already exist and we just put them all together they already exist like like they've been out here, like tails has been out since like what?
Speaker 2:2010, I don't even know until 2008, 2006 I don't even know when they came out right. Electrum is one of the first like desktop wallets yes, been in tails forever also. So, like we're not, I always tell people why reinvent the wheel when on the journey to try and really build something from scratch, like, find tools that show you how you build things, maybe bring them together and, instead of reinventing the wheel, take different wheels and build pulley systems right?
Speaker 2:and then pulley systems, you get to a whole new thing that you can do, like the sovereign key that you can literally just walk around with and be like, oh, I mean I flew over with a couple of them and they were like, oh, you just have a lot of usbs.
Speaker 1:I'm like that's it exactly, exactly, exactly a couple of usbs.
Speaker 1:I got presentations to do, yeah yeah, yeah, exactly, um, and and so let's just talk about the bitcoin node aspect of it, right? So, like anyone who's a Bitcoiner who's trying to run their own node realizes this is not a trivial thing. Like, by the time you finally get your node running on your Raspberry Pi, your Raspberry Pi is obsolete and you realize that running a node in a Raspberry Pi was a bad idea from the start. So then you're like okay, so now I need to buy, like a dedicated machine. So how have you managed to?
Speaker 2:get around that on the sovereign key, Because the sovereign key you are accessing effectively your own node on this whole thing. How does that work? So, basically, you have a pruned node, which is still a full node, mind you. It's just that with prune nodes, they don't keep all of that, they keep the headers right, so like hang on, sorry, we glitched, we glitched out, glitched out there sorry, oh, can you hear me?
Speaker 1:now can you hear me? Sorry, we get I can glitched out. I lost you there. Let's start. Start back at the beginning about the node on the node on the flash all right, no worries.
Speaker 2:So so the cool thing about a pruned node is that it doesn't store like it is a full node, and that it still has the record of like all of the transactions. It just doesn't store all 600 gigabytes of it continuously. So once, once it has the header, it literally just like a couple headers that it discards the rest. So like you can prune it down to like 40, what is it? 500 megabytes, I think is the smallest, or some crazy thing like that but like I'd say, like a couple of gigabytes, you could do like 20 gigabytes if you wanted to, or 40 gigabytes and just hold that amount and then for the rest of your data on your disk you're not worried about that. So that's one thing about a pruned node.
Speaker 2:Also, the other thing about pruned nodes is you can still attach wallets to them, right. You just can't attach things like you can't run mempool off of a sovereign key, because with mempool you need elect rs, you know for the, for the database caching, and that needs way more. So like that you wouldn't be able to. And elect rs needs, as far as I know, it needs a full, uh, a fully archival, not a fully, not a fully pruned node. That's a full node. It needs a fully archival node. So, yeah, you need the whole database and that's going to be way too much. So then you'd be trying to get two terabyte sovereign keys to be able to do something like that so that's not feasible.
Speaker 1:But if you want to broadcast, if you want to reference your own node in your own instance of Sparrow, you can do that now with your own prude node on here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's already. It's already set up that way, so you could do another one. You don't have to use the node that's on your sovereign key. You could do one on your server. You can reference that. It's just that you can walk around with your entire ability to sign your transactions and everything from your sovereign key, because your prune node is on there as well.
Speaker 1:Yep, so your entire sovereign stack on here on a flash. That's wild.
Speaker 2:With Bails also remember, because the Bails menu what Ben did with that was great, he literally integrated that, even to update. You want to say update Bitcoin Core? You just open the Bails app and then literally there's scripts and then you just go and you say, hey, update Bitcoin Core, update Sparrow, update like Tails. And then it will go look, pull from the latest repo of, because again, these are all out there already. So it just goes and looks for the latest one and if it's there, it asks you okay, this is the latest, would you like to install? And then you can install Okay, the latest would you like to install and then you can install, okay, so explain this.
Speaker 1:Explain this to me. Like, um, yeah, like, I'm joe biden, so you start out with. You started with tails. Okay, so we understand what tails is. It's like a persistent, uh, operating system sorry, a stateless operating system that lets people interact and not leave a trace, right? Um so what is balales and how is Bales different from Sovereign Key?
Speaker 2:then, so Bales is how we literally found out that you could. Bales is Bitcoin on tails. Bales is how the Bitcoin core node is on tails. That's what Ben did. He found a way to put and I mean Ben's. I was like dude, this is crazy, I like it. And then with that, he added in uh well, so Codex 32 is like a way to cut up or break up your, your seed phrase into an even more secure like set of phrases that you would then share and then you'd need.
Speaker 2:This is some really nerd shit. I'm not gonna lie, it was really fun to like go through and like to play with this shit. It's like, oh, so now you've got to go here and then you're gonna move this thing and then this thing you have to have the other codex to be able to look at. Okay, this is the next, so you can literally secure this thing for like ever, right your key, like in so many different ways. But the thing is, bales is basically a wallet, right, it's a. It allows you to have bitcoin core on tails. But then bales itself is also a wallet bales, which allows you to use codex 32 um, and you know just, I can't remember the book right now um and you can create wallets on there. You can restore wallets on there. If I remember correctly, um moon wallet was, I think, using codex study 32 at some point um so you can use bales as a as a hot wallet.
Speaker 1:So without your own hardware wallet, you can. You can use the sovereign key and store bitcoin you can use it as a hot wallet.
Speaker 2:Yeah, straight from there, but again, but the bitcoin core that you would be pulling from or using is bales, is attached to the one that's on your sovereign key as well, right, right. And then Sparrow is attached to that as well, and then you've got Electrum, which is just Electrum. You know, we don't really use it that much, but you can use it if you want to, and Electrum is there. If you wanted to, you could attach it, and then there's more coming, but that's for version 0.02 or 0.11.
Speaker 1:Okay, so let's talk about some of the other tools that are on Sovereign Key, besides the Bitcoin tools we got. So I played around with it this morning, booted it up. I see you got a password manager on there. That is epic.
Speaker 2:I don't. So again, you have to remember that within building the pulley system, some of these wheels already come with their own tools, and Tails itself comes with that password manager. Tails comes with all the free and open source things like instead of using Word, you're using Open Librebra and stuff, because tails already come all of this as a standard so we're talking.
Speaker 1:We're talking like a document editor, excel, like a, like a spreadsheet, powerpoint, like a you know presentation tool, uh, database manager, all that stuff's on there and your password manager.
Speaker 2:I was going to put um instead of vs. I was going to put instead of VS Code. I was going to put Codium on, but I didn't know if I should for this version, Because there's a lot of other things, like, as you know, there's some emulators.
Speaker 2:I want to put on for the upcoming versions, which I'm very excited for. I'm literally right now busy flashing a test sovereign key to be like ah, let's go and we're going to make this work. So, yeah, it's fun, it's great fun, and I just think that we should all try to contribute to Bitcoin in some way if we can, and I think that might be one of the ways I can contribute over time.
Speaker 1:Matt. It's a great contribution, and especially so, word on the streets that I heard from you is that this little bad boy, the seed signer, you got a seed signer emulator coming to the sovereign key. You want to break that down for us?
Speaker 2:Yes, that's what we're working on right now. So I was one of the guys that worked. It's kind of weird, but I don't even know how I fell into all these things. So I'm in the SeedSigner dev group and last year, sometime or earlier this year, somebody had the emulator up and I was like let me try this out. And I got the emulator to work on my Linux machine, on my Ubuntu machine, and I was like it's like 4am or 5am in the morning, the thing just finally works. And I'm like, yes, a job for joy. And then, like, while I was finishing up the sovereign key for this release of the readme file in version 0.01, um I. I found out that I could actually run the emulator itself on tails. So that's why I'm busy splitting up another test one to see exactly how that process goes.
Speaker 2:Do it a couple of times, test it out um, I would not in the first release, of course I I first run it a couple of times before I actually put it in there, because they have made it that you can use a camera now.
Speaker 2:At the beginning they did, you couldn't even use the camera function through it, just for it was for testing, to learn how to use the seed signer, you know which I also think is very important more than actually using it, the emulator itself on the device. I think it's more practical as a learning device to say, oh, this is how you actually go about creating keys from you know this device that I can go build, and go build this device, I can get the pieces, and that's why I want to put it on there more as a learning tool than, uh, then you use the seed signer on the sk for all of your stuff. I don't think that's why I want to put it on there More as a learning tool than you use the seat signer on the SK for all of your stuff. I don't think that's. To have that and your Sparrow on the same device I don't think is a good idea either.
Speaker 2:But you could buy two of them and do that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally, man, it's such a cool little, such a cool project, such a cool device. Hats off to you, um, and, and the first sovereign keys that are available for sale globally, anywhere in the world, are going to be available through my store. Bitcoin only, and we have. You gave me five of them. I'm keeping one, so there's four that are for sale, and these are going to be special editions, right? So it's v. Yeah, 0.1s, um, and so we were chatting about it yesterday. There's a couple of cool things they're going to do surrounding this, but mentioning something about a nice little handwritten note with a, with a number, you know, one of four, get your name on there, get a notes comes in a nice box and, uh, you'd be part of history getting one of one of the first first guys, um and I think we can?
Speaker 1:we can probably, I can probably twist your rubber arm and we can get onto onto a call with the four people who get some of these and we do like a q, a session with people how to use it. Yeah, etc, etc. Um, yeah, it'd be pretty cool yeah, I mean there'll be.
Speaker 2:There'll be a few. Well, there'll be a goodie in the box, a little surprise, uh that you can't get from the readme file. Um, and I mean, as, as as ricky just said, uh, he's got one of five. Um, none of my family members even have a sovereign key.
Speaker 1:I have like. Have I got the first one outside of you? Do I earn the first one?
Speaker 2:first sovereign key yeah, you have the first booted up one. That isn't me booting it up you have the first one.
Speaker 1:That's not me using. It's kind of like wow, it feels weird straight out of Vintook, guys, straight out of Vintook from the 061 plus 26461.
Speaker 2:That's where it comes from man.
Speaker 1:I mean I suppose it makes sense because the suburb I live in is kind of jokingly called Vintook, because the wind never stops blowing here. So like you're, in Vintook.
Speaker 2:I'm from Vintook, it's crazy yeah 100%.
Speaker 1:So yeah, so we're gonna do, we're gonna do some packaging for these and we'll probably take some. We're gonna put it out in our local signal group, um, and we'll get the pre-orders in for them, get them shipped out the next two weeks or so. Uh, I doubt these will even touch the online store. They're just gonna be, they're probably gonna be snaffled up in our in our local signal group.
Speaker 2:So I'm not going to be watching this. I got a call this morning where two calls. First call, which is great, um, my supplier in china was like bro, we're gonna get you better pricing, so I was happy about that, of course. Uh, it allows us to to do a lot more leverage with like discounts and especially again, I I'm always aiming at Bitcoiners, but next group of Bitcoiners are at school right now.
Speaker 2:So let them learn how to use the sovereign key and come through with the knowledge and like, oh okay, I already know how to use this thing, I know how to secure myself off of you know, like, even if I don't have a phone, I have a sovereign key. You know if I can go to any place where I can find a computer and I can use my sovereign key? So I think, um, we're, we're on the verge of people understanding. You don't have to reinvent the wheel, you don't have to. You know, go bang your head for eight years, like, start working with what's in front of you, speak to the people. I mean, I messaged ben and I was like, bro, I love bales canales, can we do X, y, z? Because I need to do whatever, what? And he's like, yeah, so just you know.
Speaker 2:I'll help you and then do your thing and then we just move forward, because I also think I can give you a tool. But then I go tell you, go find the books to read about. You know how to use this tool Instead of giving you the books as well. It's like, bro, all the ones that are free, take it. It's there, it's free, you can read it, you don't have to pay anybody else. You bought it once off, take it and leave. I wish I could find the guys that wrote the sovereign individual love to put that book in there, if you guys are listening.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a great book. That is a great book, man. Yeah, um, okay, so while we're on that topic, um, free and open source, how do you, how do you so present your github? There's just the readme file and github, and how? What's your approach going to be for sovereign key and and it's a closed source, open source what's your, what's your thinking?
Speaker 2:Well, currently it's made up of free and open source tools, so it's exactly as such. You could technically, if you wanted to create your own sovereign key. I tell you what technology is made up of. It's just you won't have the other things that we put in there, like in what we release as it comes out, and there's no version releases, as in like there's no binary that you can like, download and like, run or anything like that, because I just don't have that up there. Like when you click through you can go, but again, the problem is people will throw these things on devices that are going to burn out, um, and that's why we chose the specific devices we have um, and also getting them.
Speaker 2:I'm just lucky. Also because I get Bitcoin miners. I import them from China, so the same people that get me my Bitcoin miners at really well price, the same people that get me the devices for the sovereign key, so I get them at really good prices. I can stretch for a bigger, bigger time. Loop. We've tested these devices now, for I don't even know how many iterations and reinstalls and delete and reinstall. You know, like just continuously repeating the thing of getting the server just to see how long does it take for one to die?
Speaker 1:And I haven't had a death, yet so we're still strong. Yeah, the guys in Fandos know what they're doing. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean if everything says it's built in your country.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, so your answer is the open sourcing. Everything on SovereignKey is itself already open source. All of the tools are there. Like you said, you've just pulled the pulley system. You've pulled them all together correct.
Speaker 2:Basically, you could buy a Sovere, a sovereign key from us once, and you could. You could probably just clone it, um, which is my way of saying if I die, the sovereign key, you can't die.
Speaker 1:Also, you know like the project has to uh and so you say, you say you can just clone it. I actually was on there this morning and there's a menu item clone the world, it's right there you can find a way to do anything in this world.
Speaker 2:If you really put your mind to it, you could probably break into something you know it's what hackers are there for um.
Speaker 2:So what I'm saying by this is to say the sovereign key that until we can actually put it out when I find out how again, I'm only as knowledgeable as I am at this point in time like as I find out how to do this in more of a hey, just click here, download this and XYZ, yeah, that's the goal. I don't want to actually hold on to this forever. Like you know, if in a couple of years people are like bro, there's other versions of sovereign keys everywhere, guess what. That's better for society, I think, and it might just bring the cost of we're done more for us, which is also great because we can build more stuff.
Speaker 1:Like nobody wants to just build one thing yeah, but you know the thing is people love convenience, you know so. So I sell um seed signers and most people want their seed signer fully assembled. I I mean kind of an indictment on people. You know that they don't want to build themselves and check the software and all of that stuff Like. But I get it. You know, people are like they're not experts, they just want the thing to work and they they like what they get with us and the same applies to Sovereign Key that's the biggest thing.
Speaker 1:Where people aren't lazy, they're scared of messing it up. That's really what it comes down to, and so, with the sovereign key, you could clone it and get a clone from someone else, sure, or you could buy one that's already made.
Speaker 2:I mean it is also to try and say hey guys, if I know people that can't afford one, I can, I can get them. Some, you know, like to even out exactly and at least, okay, won't be as uh, the hardware won't be as reliable, probably, but I mean you can get started until you can be like, hey, let me just buy myself one and then next be like okay, cool on my learning journey until your flash sets itself on fire in the library, in the library computer.
Speaker 1:This is why you're running a cheap flash.
Speaker 2:You should actually clone it just for your data, just so it's a backup, just to back up the data you should clone. But yeah, we show you all the instructions. The instruction manual that comes with your sovereign key tells you how to do this, because we want you to not be like, oh the thing burned, I need to now go buy another sovereign key no dude, back it, it up and you could just go again. You can get another device from us, or you can, you know, source it yourself. If I don't know, somehow you can get it cheaper than we can. But if that's gonna, if you can tell us and we'll make you our supply yeah, exactly, man, it's a, it's a beautiful project.
Speaker 1:I'm super stoked you did it and I'm really stoked. This came out of namibia, um, you know of all places where cool bitcoin tech is coming out of. It's really great to see, um and uh, yeah, man, I think, I think this is going to be something that's going to take off. I really see a lot of use cases here for bitcoiners and not for bitcoiners, you know, like it's it's got wide. It's got wide, um, wide use, which is great.
Speaker 2:You don't need to be a Bitcoiner for this. That's also the other great thing. You can literally just say hey, when you plug it in and the Bitcoin bubble, you can just say close Bitcoin. I don't want to deal with that at all and that's fine.
Speaker 1:You can use this for literally sending emails without being traced, doing your homework, doing your spreadsheets, without having that annoying renew your subscription bubble that pops up from Microsoft the whole time 365. I haven't used Windows and stuff.
Speaker 2:I don't even know what it looks like bro.
Speaker 2:But, yeah, I actually have a couple of meetings around the Sovereign Key coming up in Namibia. The thing is I'm traveling right now, so I'm not back in Namibia until the end of November, and then we've got the conferences and stuff coming. But, yeah, I've got a couple of meetings with bigger tech companies that have a lot of stakeholders like government and things in their projects. So we've got a couple of meetings coming up government meetings as well, with the Ministry of ITC and the Ministry of Trade and Industrialization. So what I'm saying by this is that there's interest not just in technology, but in emerging technologies and in disruptive emerging technologies, especially like Bitcoin, you know, like Noster, like the sovereign key, like things where you can literally put the tech in somebody's hand and say go forth, now you are free, learn. Everything you need to learn about it or to start your learning journey is already on it.
Speaker 2:You can just go in and start reading the books, watching the Tattletwins video is even in there. Because that's what I'm saying Things that are free and out there, we'll put it all together, give it to you. You don't have to go and let me go find this and find that, and I think that comes down to more of a service for people, as you said it's all about convenience, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Where can people follow you online? Where can they find out more about the sovereign key? What's the best place to track you down?
Speaker 2:all right, awesome. Well, uh, if you're looking for me, it's okay at. No, sorry, it's at okin, underscore 17, that's oh, at okin, underscore 17, um, and that's on all social media platforms, which right now is only Twitter and Instagram, and you can find me on LinkedIn under my real name, nikolai. You can find me on Noster. Wow, I don't know how I'm going to give you you don't have your NPUB memorized.
Speaker 2:I do have it. I think it's at, it's open at I can't remember, but I do have one of the shorthand ones, so I'll give you that as well. But yeah, that's basically it For the sovereign key. Just go to GitHub and type in sovereign key, or you can type in githubcom forward slash big boss rabbit, forward slash sovereign key and you'll come up to it and briefly give us a quick plug for easy sets in namibia.
Speaker 1:What you're doing with easy sets?
Speaker 2:yeah, so easy sets. I can't even show you the back of my shirt right now, but anyway, easy sites is a is a bitcoin only initiative.
Speaker 2:big emphasis on bitcoin only for you guys that are out there keep asking me about other things. We're basically out there to answer questions about Bitcoin. Make sure that Namibians don't get hustled, don't get scammed, you know, with people saying, give me your money and we'll go out and get you the Bitcoin. We do it free educationals via treasuracademycom that EasySats facilitates, and then, yeah, we throw different educationals, different events. We throw educationals even for the media, so that when they write about bitcoin, what is the narrative that they're going from? Is it one that they've learned and used the tools, or is it one that they just heard their colleagues talking about? So I rather give them the tools, put you know wallets in their hands, send a couple of sets, tell them to send it to each other. So when they talk about how how Bitcoin works, they've done it, they've spent the sets, they've received it and, of course, we do it at places that can accept Bitcoin. We are working constantly on trying to get more places onboarded to accept Bitcoin, and we found one of the best ways to do that is to invite people to the free educationals where they utilize Bitcoin. We will be doing a lot more workshops.
Speaker 2:We're now in collaboration with a school in Karatura, which is our lokasi in Bintuk, the capital, and Karatura, there's a school called Jacob Marengu Secondary School, and they were gracious enough to let us host the second cohort of Trezor Academy there and some of their students attended, mind you, on a saturday for three hours. Those kids came, they sat there and they learned and I was. I was so happy, so amazing, because I'm standing in a school, an actual school, in the computer lab, teaching about bitcoin to, and it's only because it's a private school that we were able to do this. And yeah, man, like it's great. They're now looking into, you know, incorporating more stuff, setting up a Giza page, maybe in the future, even allowing Bitcoiners to. You know, oh, forget the Red Cross. Why don't you pay for, like all the great tens at Jacob Miranda? They accept Bitcoin. Why don't you adopt a classroom? You know you can.
Speaker 2:These are things that I'm trying to get started at that school, because if it can happen at that school, why can't it happen at the next school? Why can't we build a school? You know, I'm saying, like all these things that we can change the world, let's stop talking about it, let's, let's start moving it. And it comes to collaboration what we're doing with easy sets right now. We're trying that. And then, of course, we were invited to speak at the Internet Forum of Namibia on emerging technologies, which went down very well. As I was speaking about Bitcoin, I mean, I was also talking about just self-custody, the concept of custody of data, not just of your Bitcoin, and of self-hosting and really even things like your own not using ChatGPT, instead downloading the large language models and using something like FreeGPT, which you self-host, so that you're not making them more money for the numbers that they use, but you're actually still using the data and getting to your results Yep, Right.
Speaker 1:Well, guys, if you want to find out more about Okun, I suggest you come to the Adopting Bitcoin conference in Cape Town in January next year. Okun and I are going to be there. We'll be having the most to say. So come and track us down and, yeah, have a beer. Talk some shit. Talk about Sovereign Key. Be good to you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean you know and and oh, before we go, like one thing if you have an idea, please don't be like me and wait a year, and like I have, I have people continuously being like have you, have you released it? Yet you said you were gonna rather, just, you know, write the readme file, release the readme file. It will force you to release the product from the clutches of you know, your, your house, and you're just holding on to it. Ricky's got five. I don't even have that many on me anymore.
Speaker 1:I got four. One of them is mine. You have to pry this out of my cold dead hands.
Speaker 2:There you go. You only have four left. There will be more coming, as I said we're literally, as I'm out here in Cape Town speaking with all the other guys. They're busy getting stuff ready, so it's going to be great. It's going to be fun, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, guys, if you want to get your hands on one of these, there'll be a link in the description below. We can go sign up for the pre-order. The first four are going to go to the first people who come to us, probably in our local Bitcoin group, but for the rest, we'll be doing a second run. You can sign up for pre-order and we will ship them all over the world to you, because they're really small. Go in an envelope, cool Okun. Thank you so much for your time. I will be seeing you real soon again and, yeah, always a pleasure man always a pleasure.
Speaker 2:thanks a lot, man. Like the excitement you showed the first time you used the sovereign key made me want to just keep working. I'm not going to lie I can't wait to see more people using this, yeah it's a thing of beauty, cool.
Speaker 1:We'll chat to you later. All right guys, have a good one.
Speaker 2:Cheers, cheers you.
