Have you wondered about the progress of Bitcoin in Africa? Abubakar Nur Khalil, Bitcoin Core contributor, on the board of BTrust and also of Recursive Capital joins me on the show to talk about:

• Bitcoin core contribution and developer training/mentor process
• Qala
• Bitcoin in Africa & education
• B Trust
• Recursive Capital and investing in African Bitcoin companies

Links:

• Abubakar’s Twitter: @ihate1999
• B Trust: @btrustteam
• Recursive Capital:  @RcrsvCapital

Sponsors: 

• Swan Bitcoin
• Hodl Hodl Lend
• Compass Mining
• Braiins.com
• Unchained Capital (code LIVERA)
• CoinKite.com(code LIVERA)

Stephan Livera links:

• Show notes and website
• Follow me on Twitter @stephanlivera
• Subscribe to the podcast
• Patreon @stephanlivera 

Podcast Transcript:

Stephan Livera:

Abubakar, welcome to the show.

Abubakar Nur Khalil:

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Stephan Livera:

So Abubakar, I saw you wrote an article in Bitcoin Magazine and also you’re working as one of the directors of Bitcoin Trust. So I thought this would be really interesting to hear a little bit about your background, what you’re doing, as well as Bitcoin in Africa. So can you tell us a little bit about yourself? I know you are a Bitcoin core developer, so maybe you could explain a little bit about how you came to do that?

Abubakar Nur Khalil:

Yeah, sure. So it all started back in like 2013, really, when I got a video from my older brother—it was a YouTube video trying to explain what Bitcoin was from quite a technical point of view, so trying to explain mining, all that kind of stuff. And I was just 14 at the time, so I didn’t really understand anything. And then fast forward to after I graduated from high school, that was 2016, and then 2017—because he works in the Kaduna Investment Promotion Agency—so they were trying to get IBM’s DNA program into Kaduna State. So part of that was to find out, first of all, what is what we call Hyperledger, which is a private blockchain, so that’s how the questioning started. So I was like, Oh, what’s blockchain? All that kind of stuff. And then he asked me, and I was like, Oh, I have no idea as well. And we started reading articles. So that was about the time before I was planning to go into college and actually study architecture. So in that period I was like, Eh—still doing on and off. Because back in 2015 I started watching Mr. Robot, so that was in my head—the first time I saw hacking and the privacy side of the world, which I wasn’t privy to previous to that. So 2017, I was still thinking, You know what? I’m reading a lot of these articles that I didn’t understand about Bitcoin—it makes a lot of sense to just go and learn the fundamentals about computer science, so that was the route I took. So started teaching myself through fundamentals—What’s a program? What’s a computer? Computer architecture—all that kind of stuff. You know, the basics. And then towards the end of that year, I started understanding a lot of the material, especially when it comes to the technical side of things. So in early 2018 was when I really started programming. So I already started teaching myself how to code in Python, JavaScript, and basic languages like that. And then in 2018, I started actually really coding pet projects. So I did a programming language in Python, which was called Rocket. I was trying to test out things and see how it really works underneath the hood. I did a mock blockchain, which was a bit of a rudimentary blockchain at the time. It didn’t have any UTXOs or anything like that, so that was quite a good learning experience as well. So I did some other side projects like that. Sound Player, all that kind of stuff. And then towards the beginning of 2019 is when I started reading up about the protocol layer of Bitcoin. So at that point I had already understood at least to some extent what mining was, as well as other things. So I started reading up more and more about the protocol and found out that actually this is a software—it’s not just some magic internet money. There is code running on a bunch of computers around the world. So later that year in 2019, around October or so, I went on GitHub—hadn’t compiled Core before or anything. I was just checking through the good first issues. And then I came across one of them, which is about the GUI to change the node window name, really, so that was the first time I was like, Couldn’t I give it a shot? So I learned early on that if you want to take on a pull request, you actually have to signify to the public so that people aren’t working on it while you’re working on it. So you have to reserve the pull request, so to speak. So that’s what I did. I was a bit hesitant, because again, that was my first time. So I went to compile Core—you know, the docs are really well written—so I compiled Core and I started working on it and then pushed the changes I had and opened the pull request. It was really, really nice to see that the community was really, really welcoming, compared to Twitter where you have quite a lot of toxic people, but the dev side is completely different. Everyone’s welcoming there. So I met a lot of developers that helped me out with regards to back and forth feedback and reviewing the code. So that’s the first time I got introduced into how the review flow works in open source when it comes to Bitcoin. I did a few back and forth, and then towards the beginning of 2020 was when I actually got merged, which was something I had to find out the hard way, I guess, that pull requests—it doesn’t really matter whether it’s a minor change or like a really huge change—the time between when you push the pull request and when it gets merged really differs. It’s a really dynamic process—it depends on a lot of things. So that was the first time I contributed to Core. And then after that, over the years, I started doing a lot more contributions, especially after 2021, when I really continued opening more pull requests, actually reviewing code and all that kind of stuff. So that’s really what I’ve been doing. And in between, I launched Recursive Capital, started Qala with Bernard and the other Bitcoiners, and then BTrust as well. So that’s a brief history of how I came to be.

Stephan Livera:

Sure, sure. And one interesting thing I’d love you to touch on more is you mentioned there’s that contrast between the Bitcoin Twitter community and the Bitcoin developer community. Could you explain a little bit about that difference for people who aren’t as familiar?

Abubakar Nur Khalil:

Yeah. So on Bitcoin Twitter, whoever has a glimpse of it or is in the space knows that there are quite a lot of notorious toxic accounts. And a lot of people like to bag on Bitcoin saying the reason why there isn’t a lot of innovation—which is false—in Bitcoin is because of those toxic elements. But the truth is, when it goes to the depth side of things, a lot of that noise is filtered out. All you have is really serious developers that are here to either work on the protocol or help out with beginners in terms of teaching them the ropes, answering questions—whether dumb or intelligent questions. So it is a really different world, completely. Everyone is super-open on GitHub and on some of these other dev channels. So whether it’s IRC or even the weekly Bitcoin review club, which is a great thing for first-timers—it’s the best way you can really see how the code is reviewed, get a lot of tips from existing developers as well. So really, it’s two different worlds. I mean, Twitter has a lot of toxic guys. A lot of people who aren’t really coding are there, so there’s a lot of noise when it comes to actually people working on the protocol. So yeah, you expect a lot of toxic maxis there, but even though there are toxic maxis on GitHub and these dev environments, a lot of that is put to the side—it’s just strictly focusing on code and making the project better. So really, it’s two different things.

Stephan Livera:

And in your article as well, you gave a bit of an overview around what’s happening in Bitcoin Core development. And one area you mentioned is that there are a little bit under 40 full-time developers in terms of Bitcoin Core developers and review and maintainers. And then you were saying the number of maintainers is actually in the single digits. So I’m curious: in your view, do you think that that is low? Should that be higher? Or do you see that as, That’s just the reality of where we’re at?

Abubakar Nur Khalil:

Yeah, great question. I mean, it’s not something that’s unique to Bitcoin. Some other open source products are even a lot worse, where you have like a single maintainer working on some very, very critical piece of code. Obviously we want more quality developers, I should say—not just developers in general—because again, there are a lot of people that tried to contribute to Core from time to time, even as a Core contributor, looking at the code and seeing a lot of pull requests are springing up. A lot of the code that’s really proposed from beginners isn’t exactly either useful or done well from a quality assurance perspective, so it’s one of those things where you want to be careful the kind of developers you’re onboarding into the project, so that you don’t bring in individuals that will make huge changes, not maintain the code—which is a huge issue for open source projects—and then leaving all of the existing developers to manage groggy code. So I definitely think we need more developers, but quality developers definitely. Whether we’re talking about maintainers all the way to individuals that are a bit outside of the maintainer role, so to speak, but definitely we need a lot more quality devs working on it, especially for code reviews. There are a lot of pull requests that a lot of times there are very few people with a lot of expertise to the code base, so it takes a lot of their time, and priority is a huge issue for them, because they have to prioritize pull requests to be reviewing. So it makes a lot of sense for us to have more quality devs to shoulder on that responsibility. But yeah, it’s just the state of things, I guess.

Stephan Livera:

And I think it is also made a little bit more difficult by the nature of this very decentralized system, in that way, that people have to try to learn the code base and understand where these things can interact. And so also a really interesting book—and you might have read it as well—is this one called Working in Public by Nadia Eghbal. And that was an interesting one, because it was talking about how there’s this lifecycle of contributors and that it’s quite common that there might be some drive-by first-time contributors, but then the number of people who go further down that pathway and actually specialize—take the time to really know and learn it—that’s a much smaller number. And I think it comes down to there being the right kind of infrastructure or pipeline, if you will, for new Bitcoin Core contributors, and reviewers also, which is quite important. Because that can end up being the bottleneck, can’t it?

Abubakar Nur Khalil:

Yeah, definitely. And that’s why you have to be very, very careful. Even if we have larger numbers, you’re still gonna have fewer and fewer numbers as you go closer and closer to the maintainer roles—definitely—especially people with merge access. Which, with a project like Bitcoin Core, you don’t want just anyone merging code willy-nilly, definitely. There are a lot of implications to even the slightest changes to the code base. So yeah, that’s really just one of those things that’s a part of the open source dynamic.

Stephan Livera:

And so when it comes to this idea of onboarding new developers—now, there have been different approaches and ideas shared around this. In some cases it’s like apprenticeship or a mentor model, this idea that, when you are new, that it might be seen that there’s not a defined pathway for you to go, and that’s where having a mentor to guide you and show you the ropes, or there to be a program of development or essentially guidance in that way. Do you see that as the essential thing? Or how are you seeing it that people are going to be onboarded in as Bitcoin Core contributors?

Abubakar Nur Khalil:

Yeah, definitely. I think it’s one of those things where, like I said, it requires quite a lot of specialized skill, especially when it comes to not only the context of the code, the state of the code, why things are the way they are in the code base, and some of the things that require individuals who have been working a long time on the project, to really educate people who are newbies in the project to reasons why certain code changes have been made, certain design choices, especially because you have a lot of people coming and thinking they’re improving the code, but not knowing that it’s specifically done that way for a reason—there are a lot of unintended consequences. So I think the best path forward obviously is to have the sort of programs that either mix mentorship within it or have individuals that are already existing in the ecosystem to help them with the onboarding. So I think mentorship is a great avenue. There are a lot of projects doing that—Chaincode Labs being the primary method of onboarding. A lot of new developers are fortunate to have gone through their seminars both for Lightning and Bitcoin, which has really helped, especially with learning from individuals that are actually coding, especially from Bitcoin Core as well as LND. And then other projects as well, like Summer of Bitcoin, which has done a tremendous job in terms of onboarding new developers. I’ve had the pleasure of reviewing code from these new developers from out of the program, which is really, really great. Another project is Qala, which I’m involved in, and we’ll be starting the main program itself this April. I’m really excited with regards to that, because that is taking the step of both providing individuals to get Bitcoin jobs and growing the Bitcoin and Lightning developer base as well. And having them have the opportunity to actually have a mentorship going into contributing to open source projects as well, so you’re gonna see a lot more projects that take that route of having mentorship and reskilling or skilling developers into coming into the ecosystem. Again, like I said, it’s a highly technical thing—you don’t want to just throw a ton of developers to fix a problem. That’s not how it’s done. So yeah, mentorship is a huge role. And shout-out to all the Bitcoin developers who have been working day and night to get the project where it is, and those who are taking on mentorship roles—Jon Atack and some of the other developers—they’re doing a huge service to humanity, in my opinion.

Stephan Livera:

Could you tell us a little bit about Qala then? The structure of it? What does it look like? And as you mentioned, it’s starting soon, isn’t it? So can you just give a bit of an overview there?

Abubakar Nur Khalil:

Yeah, definitely. So I was gonna start off with a fixed amount of developers that we’re working with. The pool specifically we targeted with regards to the developers coming into the program was mid to senior level developers—again, because we think a lot of the time shouldn’t be spent on teaching them how to code—that should be something that they already have experience with, so that the main focus is just on teaching them about Bitcoin, technical aspects, how to work with Bitcoin and wallet architecture, all that kind of stuff that they will be required to have a great grasp of if they’re going into either jobs or actually working in some of these open source projects. So that’s one decision we took when it comes to the developers we are seeking. And another thing is we’re gonna be looking at I think around 13 developers for this first cohort. And what they’ll be doing is they’ll have three months of intensive Bitcoin education. And so already we have done a few study groups with some of the participants—that’s part of the selection process that we had going into this first cohort, because we figured interviews and video interviews and all that kind of stuff to filter them out isn’t exactly enough for this type of program that we’re setting up, because it’s gonna be hands on full-time. You can’t really assess that from a few calls with someone—you really need to put them into the wild, use some sort of test framework to see how they fare close to what seems like what the program will be like. So some sort of mock program, I guess. So the study group that we’ve had—so far we’ve had around two—has served that purpose. Seeing some of the individuals that came in really strong and then flagged out or dropped out, and that’s a good indication that they’ll likely not make it through the entire program full-time. So that’s another thing we’ve done. So with the main program stuff, like I said, it’s a three month intensive. They’ll go in learning a lot of theoretical stuff initially, then they’ll go into fully practical stuff. So they’ll be having the opportunity to start up their own projects, pet projects, and then working with some mentors as well. They’ll be checking on them and seeing how they’re doing, seeing progress, as well as all the way to the final step where they’ll be working on their portfolios as well, since they’ll be having opportunity to actually get jobs in Bitcoin roles. So we’ve already been in contact with quite a lot of Bitcoin companies to facilitate that transition between the two. Another thing that’s quite important is: remember, we’re requesting these developers to give us their full time, and a lot of them are already existing engineers with jobs. So in order to help with that transition, we also provide them with stipends that they would require. The main purpose of doing that is: not only would they have to quit their jobs and now request or require financial aid since a lot of them have family members depending on them—it’s not just solo devs from a responsibility perspective. So for us, it makes a lot of sense for us to actually provide them with some financial float in between the project and stuff until they get jobs or they move on to open source where they have access to grants as well. So I’m really looking forward to see how they fare in the wild. We’re really excited. We have quite a lot of strong developers. The entire cohort is strong, in my opinion, so I can’t wait for them to be thrown into the wild to do great stuff.

Stephan Livera:

Yeah, that’s an interesting point as well, because especially, as you mentioned, this is not just junior developers. This is mid to senior level developers, and we have to remember that their opportunity costs can be quite high, because they could otherwise be working—not even in the Bitcoin world—they could just be working in a normal software development role earning a decent amount of coin at that level of knowledge and expertise. So it is an interesting one, but I think probably for some of them it might be passion, it might be the career, the calling aspect of it. And I think the other point that’s interesting to talk about is career pathways for a Bitcoin developer contributor. What are some of the career pathways that exist for them? And what can be done on that side?

Abubakar Nur Khalil:

Yeah, so we’re quite fortunate in the time we’re in right now. If we’re having this conversation 5, maybe even 10 years ago, it would’ve been a huge, huge difference when it comes to the opportunities to have, especially for open source developers. A lot of them still do the work they do pro bono, but we’re seeing a lot more projects, even exchanges, get into the fora with regards to funding developers, which is incredible. Spiral is also doing a lot of that—Brink, for example. So we’re seeing a lot of opportunities for developers that are trying to get into open source, which is at the heart of this entire ecosystem. A lot of the critical code that runs or powers the ecosystem is really open source, all the way from Bitcoin core all the way to some of these other projects like LND as well. So it makes a lot of sense for them to go that route. And we’re at a point, like I said, where there are a lot of avenues for individuals to get funding, whether it’s short-term funding or even year-on grants, which organizations like Brink do. And the HRF too has done quite a lot in this regard as well, so that’s the route of going open source as well. Another thing is, developers have the opportunity to actually work in Bitcoin companies. So this is analogous to what you would normally have with regards to regular tech companies where you just work there, get a salary, all that kind of stuff. Another model—which we’ll see whether it’s adopted or not, which is something that companies can be looking at, especially Bitcoin companies—is when they hire these developers, they could give them some time out of the week to actually be working on some of these open source products. Again, like I said, a lot of it is open source and it makes a lot of sense for you to be throwing your great developers to actually work on some of these upstream projects like Bitcoin Core to ensure that the project is stable, all those tools and services you’re building on top of it are benefiting from this robustness and this resiliently built project. So allowing them not only to have jobs as conventional jobs in different companies or going the grant route—you could mix the two by giving back to the open source community while still having these developers get hired. So there are a couple of other gigs you could run from the freelance perspective for developers. So these are individuals that don’t necessarily want to have a job nor do they want to commit to a grant. So there are a lot of bug bounties, there are a lot of bounties in the space, which, like I said, this is just for those who don’t really want that commitment for either a 9-to-5 or grants. So there’s also that opportunity: a lot of grants, even in Bitcoin Core or a lot of other open source products where individuals come in, request a change, and then they put a bug bounty or they put a bounty against that for anyone who wants to make it. So yeah, those are some of the opportunities that come to mind. Another one obviously is mentorship roles as well. With more and more of these projects coming and onboarding individuals, you could actually come on board as a mentor as well if you’ve been an open source contributor for quite a while. So you can come on as a mentor and get paid to actually do that mentorship also. These are some of the quick examples I could think of with regards to opportunities for developers.

Stephan Livera:

And as you rightly point out there, it’s not just at the protocol level, it could also be at an application level. And as you said, even some of the bug bounties or bounties for a feature, as an example, if somebody puts up a bounty because they want some feature in Blue Wallet or Zeus Wallet and they put up some sats as the reward for the person who completes it, then that can also be an angle for some people who want to participate in a smaller capacity rather than the, I’m working full-time on Bitcoin Core aspect. So there’s different ways that can go also. So with Qala then, is the idea that it’s like for African developers? Or it’s just a global thing and you’re just based in Africa?

Abubakar Nur Khalil:

Yeah, great question. So Qala is specifically designed for African developers. We see that the talent pool here is quite huge. There’s a huge youthful population as well going, even in countries like Nigeria, and especially states like Kaduna, which is where I reside. The youthful population is just growing and growing, so it makes sense for us to tap into this existing pool. We want more quality developers, like I said, so number one, we’re decentralizing the developer base, which is great for the resilience of the project and the long-term well-being of the project, really, from that standpoint. And at the same time, we’re tapping into this existing pool of great developers. So it’s a no-brainer for us to locate here, and obviously I’m Nigerian as well—I’m African by that extension. So I’d obviously like to see—similar to all the other co-founders—to see great depths come out of this geography, especially from the standpoint of giving them a seat at the table, because a lot of the changes and the benefits that Bitcoin has really resides or resonates with individuals on this continent, especially when it comes to censorship resistance, having an efficient payment rail that actually works 24/7—no need for any banks or inefficient existing infrastructure, financially speaking. So yeah, it makes a lot of sense for us to do it from that regard. So it’s primarily an African program, and we’ve had quite a lot of individuals—even outside of Nigeria—in the program, especially in the first cohort as well. So yeah, we’re looking forward to seeing how this new wave of African devs fare and come and help out the protocol. So that’s the vision that we have and the main reason why we went that way.

Stephan Livera:

Yeah. And is the program being run remote or is it actually in person?

Abubakar Nur Khalil:

Yeah, so it’s a mix of the two. Initially, because of COVID, we had to keep going back and forth with regards to how much we have in person versus remote. But now we’re definitely gonna mix the two with regards to having them clock in—obviously, not everyone can come in and actually meet physically, but we’re making arrangements to make that possible, at least, because we want that human connection at the end of the day. You can’t replicate via web camera, or cameras in general. So yeah, we’re making accommodations for having it both ways.

Stephan Livera:

Are there any particular focus areas that you see? So as an example, securing your coins or using your hardware wallet or using Bitcoin privately or the networking aspect of Bitcoin or the protocol layout—like, are there any focus areas? Or is it left to the participant and the mentors to figure out exactly what are they gonna focus on?

Abubakar Nur Khalil:

Yeah, so it’s gonna be quite specialized from a perspective of having some of these developers pick the path that they want to go down. So when I say pick the path, this is specifically with regards to going either the Bitcoin-only route—so you’re just working on products in the Bitcoin sphere—not any sort of second layer solution like Lightning. Or going the Lightning path. So the main reason for that is Lightning is quite a specialized field from the perspective of: you need quite a lot of Bitcoin grounding before you actually understand the material. So it makes a lot of sense for us to allow them that pathway to decide from that perspective. And again, we’re gonna be having individuals that might want to actually start off their projects on their own. Some others want to actually just get jobs. Some others just want to work on open source products and get grants. So we are accommodating, and we are specifically designing in a way to tailor this program to each individual’s pathway. That way, we don’t necessarily throw them at one single pathway and then have developers that go, Ah, I’m not feeling this, and all that kind of stuff. So yeah, that’s really the main decision we’re taking. And again, that’s why we have a small amount of individuals in each cohort that we’ll be doing. So we’ll be ranging from 15 down below to 13, 10—that kind of number.

Stephan Livera:

Yeah. And so is the aim to repeat this on a yearly basis? Or like, have multiple cycles per year? I mean, you said it’s three months, so does that mean you’re gonna do like three or four cycles per year kind of thing?

Abubakar Nur Khalil:

Yeah. So initially with this, we’re trying to prove out the entire structure that we have with regards to getting them from applying all the way to actually getting through with the program. So we’re gonna be doing it on a yearly basis—at least that’s initially the plan that we have. We’ll see whether we could juggle having more than one cohort per year. That depends a lot on how this one goes, obviously, to see how we could scale it. It’s one of those things where you have to try it out, see what works, and then adapt all those things that work and then build out the proper structures that you want to actually scale it through. So yeah, we’ll start off with a yearly thing and then we’ll see whether we could do more than that. Next year it could be like three, four—we’ll see how it works.

Stephan Livera:

Yeah, great. So bringing it now to BTrust—Bitcoin trust—which you are a part of this. So do you want to just give an overview? What is it? And how did this come about?

Abubakar Nur Khalil:

Yeah. So it’s one of those things where being on Twitter really helps, because the application was open, so I got a DM from my older brother showing me the application. Like, Yo dude—just try this out. Let’s see. And then I was like, Eh—because of all these OGs mentioned in the thread, I’m like, Who the hell am I? I know I contribute to Bitcoin and everything, but some of these guys have been around even before I knew what Bitcoin was. So yeah, we did some back and forth and then man this convinced me: I was like, You know what? Even if you do it and you don’t get it, it doesn’t really matter. At the end of the day, you still took a shot, so you won’t be thinking about it onwards in the future saying, Oh, I should have done it. So I did it—I applied. Initially it took a while for them to get back to us—which now we know why, because of the sheer amount of individuals that applied, 7,000+, which is a crazy number—and so yeah I applied, I was like, I’m sure I didn’t get through, because it took a while. And then when they responded, I was like, Oh damn, I’m still in. From the point of the initial application, it was really about getting to know the applicants—from what I could tell—from their side, which is, What have you done? The proof of work—all that kind of stuff. And then down the line, it became quite specific about problems you’re trying to solve, what are the issues you see? And it’s easy to outline issues, obviously, so it was really interesting to get questions from them about what are the practical solutions that you see that would be beneficial in terms of, If you get on the board itself, what are you gonna do? So it was really interesting. I learned quite a lot throughout the process and all the way to getting to the video screens themselves, meeting some of the team behind the selection process and getting a feel of what the direction of this project is, and having the opportunity to really speak your mind about the solutions I have at hand. So it was really interesting throughout the entire process. And part of the process towards the end I was like, You know, I need to document some of this, or at least what I have in mind—whether I get it or not—just so I have something to work towards. Because prior to that, it was just stuff in my head. So that’s how the Bitcoin Magazine article came about—it was actually from all the application process, the entire process I went through with Btrust. Just a mind dump, really. So yeah, with regards to Btrust, it’s a really important project in my opinion, one that would provide a lot of benefit down the line—we’re talking 5-10 years. One of those projects where, if it’s done really right—which it will be, given the caliber of the other team members, individuals like Carla, Obi, and Ojoma, definitely great folks—so it’ll be one of those projects where we’re trying to grow the Bitcoin ecosystem in Africa, at least initially, and then gradually grow out as we build more capacity into other regions or other geographies in the global South, like India. So the benefit of growing this ecosystem in these regions—remember, we have huge developer talent pools in these two geographies, we’re talking about India or Africa—and for us to tap into that existing talent pool and then have them come and work on Bitcoin is a great service, and one of those things that will have tremendous value going down the line from the perspective of having a more resilient project, a more well-built out project, because now you’re looking at quality devs coming into the sphere. So it’s one of those things where we’re gonna be doing quite a lot of funding towards growing the space from the perspective of grant-style based funding. Another thing is: individuals think we’re gonna be venture-style funding with equity, but that’s not the case. It’s a non-profit, to begin with, and the primary space we’re trying to look at is the open source space, because that’s where all the value we feel is—really, the ecosystem, whether you’re talking about payment gateways, even the wallets like you mentioned. A lot of them are quite open source, and the core infrastructure itself is open source. So with Btrust, that’s the entire mission, really: to grow this developer ecosystem for Bitcoin. So I’m really glad I get to be at the driver’s seat mapping out and seeing how we could actually help out, because from my perspective, this is providing a service not only to the Bitcoin ecosystem but to Africa as a whole, because we’re actually trying to be building out viable long-term solutions. So we’re talking about proper financial freedom—finally—not relying on aid and all these things that are short-term. So yeah, there are a lot of developers currently working in the shitcoinverse or shitcoinsphere, and it’s our job, I feel, to help funnel these talented developers to work on long-term projects, not just short-term projects to just airdrop and give them these short-term returns where you have shitcoin holders and all that kind of stuff. So yeah, it makes a lot of sense for us to go down the route of providing a proper long-term solution, and having that signal in the sphere for these developers to come in and work on.

Stephan Livera:

So Bitcoin Trust was basically started by Jack Dorsey and Jay-Z. And so this funding, these Bitcoins, have been put up as part of what Bitcoin Trusts’ directors can allocate. And so I guess then the question would be: what do you see as the main challenges for Bitcoin in Africa?

Abubakar Nur Khalil:

Oof—there’s quite a lot. So primarily, the first one I would mention is (1) education. When I say education—I mean, everyone knows about Bitcoin when you’re in the Bitcoin ecosystem, but if you zoom out and really ask average folks, Have you heard about Bitcoin? What’s Bitcoin? Either they’ve never heard about Bitcoin, or those that have, have a warped view of Bitcoin. So, you know: planet-killers, scams, all that kind of stuff, because quite a lot of scams came into this part of the world when initially Bitcoin came in all crazy and hot. So from my perspective, I think we still have a lot to do from that education perspective—average individuals and developers—because again, even the existing base of Bitcoiners on the continent, they still don’t have tools and services that really address the day-to-day issues that they’re facing in these geographies. So having these developers work on these projects that actually fix these local issues that they have will go a long way with regards to increasing the utility that they have on a day-to-day basis for some of these tools and services. And then with education, obviously you don’t want to have a lot of quality products and services being built out and then being wrongly used, for example. When I say wrongly used, I mean individuals doxxing themselves via address reuse, for example. So you want to develop these average folks to understand how to secure their coins, because there’s quite a lot of responsibility with regards to fully owning your financial freedom. So it helps for us to be able to give them proper onboarding education when it comes to how to secure coins, how to use Bitcoin correctly, not address reusing, how to ensure they’re not victims of scams, when they’re not being told to publish their private keys on random websites—all that kind of stuff. So another thing is (2) regulation. And this is not unique to Africa specifically, because around the world, a lot of governments are clamping down, and most of it is reactionary, especially in Africa. And I feel it’s the job of the stakeholders not to just be tweeting at some of these government handles saying, F you, you don’t stop Bitcoin. I mean, that’s nice and cool for memes, but at the end of the day, all these regulations really affect average individuals who gain to benefit the most from actual Bitcoin proliferation on the continent. So I feel it’s imperative for us to actually go out to these regulators and go, Okay, relax—this is not exactly what Bitcoin is. It’s not some random shadowy money that’s used for terror financing. These are some of the benefits that we have from the individual perspective all the way to the state level, some of the benefits of allowing proliferation, whether it’s growing the energy grid system using Bitcoin mining, for example, which is something I think is a huge, huge deal that we should be exploring, especially in Africa in some of these parts that have a lot of renewable resources to tap into. Another thing is to (3) bring them on board. A lot of this is reactionary and it’s fear as a result of ignorance, really. So we have to educate them and really bring them on board to have proper Bitcoin-friendly regulation. And once we do, we can’t stop them requiring KYC and all these things, but at least what we can do is find some common ground, so we could bridge between fully KYCing every single person and checking up all their addresses and some of these antithetical things, and having projects and services that actually still maintain all these private tools and privacy-preserving software, which is open source software. So yeah, it’s one of those things where it’s a balance. So education and regulation are definitely some of the things that are immediate concerns that I think we need to really address.

Stephan Livera:

And speaking from a Nigeria perspective, at least from my perspective, it seems like the government has gone back and forth, and it seems like—okay, so obviously you know more than me, but just let me give how I’m seeing it, and you tell me your perspective—so how I’m seeing it, at least from the outside and from the news articles and things, I’m seeing it like there’s so many people in Nigeria who have Bitcoin as a percentage of the population. It seems the adoption is extremely high there compared to other countries. But at the same time, we’ve seen the government try to stop Bitcoin, or at least stop some of the regulated exchanges, which has driven more peer-to-peer trading. Am I right or wrong? Or what’s your perspective as a Nigerian?

Abubakar Nur Khalil:

Yeah, that’s exactly—that reflects the reality on the ground. They’ve been going back and forth of actually trying to frame more Bitcoiners from that perspective. The SEC did some work initially early on trying to classify it as a security, similar with other jurisdictions. And then by having a lot of other talks with their guys—Is this an asset? Is this something that’s taxable? All these kind of things. And again, like I said, this is just because they don’t have a proper holistic understanding of what Bitcoin is, what the benefits are, and what the consequences of allowing the proliferation is. And again, this is our job, I feel, to actually reach out to them and explain all these things. But yeah, there are a lot of reactionary things that have been happening as a result of this ignorance. And one of these things is the circular that they released with the CBN which a lot of people interpreted it as a ban, which isn’t exactly what happened. It’s more like stopping existing financial services or products to be working directly with Bitcoin. So these are FinTech apps or apps in general that have bank account transfers directly specifying that they’re working with Bitcoin. So a lot of these services had to flock to P2P like you mentioned. Many other countries in Africa, this P2P, a lot of it is happening on WhatsApp—weirdly—and Telegram as well. But WhatsApp, primarily. And again, this is just because individuals are trying to circumvent this restrictive regulation that we have on the ground, hence why I’m hammering that we really need to unlock this full potential that we have. But again, P2P is a great thing from a resilience perspective, so you still want to build out the entire infrastructure from a P2P perspective so that when these bans happen—if you’re a startup or if you’re working on a wallet—you don’t want to be thrown out of business, which is what happened to quite a lot of individuals, at least for the short-term, before they had to route to P2P. But again, other companies like Bitnob, which Recursive has invested in, have already seen this coming, and have been building out P2P services as well to help bridge these gaps that we see. And we expect a lot of these other apps—product services—to follow suit just from the perspective of resilience and being cautious. But again, all this is reactionary. We read and we laugh, but it has real world consequences, and it’s just one of those things where we have to actually put our money where our mouth is and really go and reach out to them and educate them and have some common ground. It’s not really that hard, honestly,

Stephan Livera:

In terms of education as well, one thing—and I believe you might have touched on this in the article as well—is the translations aspect, is that a lot of the educational material is in English. So can you tell us a little bit about this? Like, what can be done here in terms of localizing material?

Abubakar Nur Khalil:

Yeah, so already around Africa and even around the world by token, a lot of people have been doing great work. Especially even Africa, there’s some regions—like Kal Kassa, who’s doing great work with regards to translation, and there’s @arabic_hodl who translates Bitcoin material into Arabic, which, you know, given North Africa speaks quite a lot of Arabic, and so targeting that demographic really helps. But generally with regards to translations, it’s one of those things where, for individuals who speak English, you might not see the big deal in having this material in other languages, but for those who aren’t English speakers, or that’s not their native tongue—it’s a huge deal. I mean, think of it from this perspective: it’s like seeing hieroglyphs from their perspective, and then us providing this Rosetta Stone to actually unlock this vast wealth of knowledge. Even if you’re looking throughout history, the Renaissance and everything, a lot of that only came about because of language translation, from Latin to Arabic, to some of these other—Latin, for example—and then going all the way up to English. So for them it’s one of those things where you want to unlock this knowledge and provide it to a lot of individuals, because the benefits of freedom money is one of those things where you want every single person to have the opportunity to know about it, have the opportunities to actually participate in it, and actually unlock this self-sovereignty, which a lot of individuals around the world do not necessarily have because of fiat systems. So I see a lot of benefits with regards to going that route. And even in Africa, especially, with all the languages that are available in Africa, I think it’s very, very important for us to target at least—not every single language, because that’s not exactly practical—but at least the major languages outside of English. So we’re talking about Arabic, Aramaic, Amharic, some of these other languages like even Hausa, Igbo, for example, in Nigeria, and some of these other languages that are spoken—like, Swahili as well. So I see a lot of benefit in unlocking this knowledge and providing it to individuals, because again, a lot of these innovations that’ll happen in Bitcoin is from individuals that don’t necessarily know about Bitcoin right now. So these are people that will come around in 5-10 years that will be reshaping how the entire development goes, and with regards to all the innovative products and services that will be built. So it makes a lot of sense for us to provide that opportunity beforehand to really tap into that wealth of benefits.

Stephan Livera:

Yeah. And also from a hardware perspective, obviously people being able to secure their keys—look, when people start, they’re probably just on a phone, right? But over time, it’s time to think about hardware wallets and so on. But then that question is the cost, the price point of hardware wallets. Like, okay, sure—you can tell ’em, Yeah, get a Coldcard, but a Coldcard is like 120 bucks, right? So what’s your thinking there around hardware in Africa for Bitcoiners?

Abubakar Nur Khalil:

Yeah, so it’s one of those things where Bitcoin would benefit greatly from a lot more individuals running some of these infrastructure level devices—not necessarily hardware wallets—I’m talking in general. So even running a Raspberry Pi, for example, to actually guard your coins, because you don’t want to be relying on SPV-styled—relying on some of these other wallets that run their own nodes where they could see exactly every single transaction, even though you could still use some sort of client-side filtering, obviously, but again, it’s still a lot of benefit for you to actually run your own nodes. And the cost to actually run a node for Bitcoin compared to other cryptos definitely is really, really low. I mean, Raspberry Pis aren’t really that expensive, but again, still for the average individual around a lot of parts of Africa, this is still not something that they could afford to do. So I think going forward—and we’re talking about hardware wallets specifically—I think it helps to have a lot of these other projects that are starting, by Jack, for example, with Blocks with the whole hardware wallet game that they’re trying to get into. That would definitely help bring down the price point, which is what you’re talking about. And that would allow for these individuals to actually be able to gain access to it. It’s easy, like you said, to tweet out, Get a Coldcard and all these sort of things, but t’s not practical for a lot of people. So we just have to find ways to ensure that we have a lot of people working in this space to drive not only innovation, but also drive the price down for individuals to be able to participate in that sphere. But another thing obviously is before we get to that stage, there are still ways we could try and provide individuals with practical things to do to secure the coins without necessarily having hardware wallets. So they were talking about using asymmetric encryption to either encrypt the seed, have it on paper and then store it, or some other complicated way to do that—just trying to bridge the UX gap between storing the coins and doing all those kinds of stuff. I obviously don’t recommend individuals use paper wallets or brain wallets for example, but these are some of the things that we have to provide alternatives to before we get to a stage where a lot of people are working on the hardware wallet space and then driving down the price. So that’s my perspective with regards to that.

Stephan Livera:

Yeah, sure. I mean, in fairness as well, there are efforts that being made around NFC-style cards and even Coinkite are doing things like Tapsigner and some of these cheaper devices that obviously don’t have the same level of security, but are accessible. So that’s an angle. Or even projects like SeedSigner—that’s another example where it can be like a cheaper hardware wallet. So those are a few examples. So when you’re looking from a Bitcoin Trust perspective—when you’re looking at what kinds of projects to fund—what kinds of things are you looking for there?

Abubakar Nur Khalil:

Yeah, so, like I said, initially it’s gonna be more grant-styled, focus on actual developers running in the ecosystem, but down the line, that would be the prerogative of the board and specifically the lead that’s hired. So we may see—this is just from my perspective, not talking on behalf of the board—maybe going into some of open source projects that provide this value. Again, just providing them with funding and not necessarily requesting equity or anything like that. So that’s at least how I see that from that possibility perspective of actually helping out with that sort of endeavor down the line, but this is more down the lines stuff. Like I said, initially, we’re going to be focusing primarily on that, but yeah, definitely that would be how I would imagine that would go about.

Stephan Livera:

Sure, sure. And let’s chat a bit about Recursive Capital. So firstly, what is it?

Abubakar Nur Khalil:

Yeah, so Recursive is a Bitcoin venture capital fund. So we’re seeking out projects that are in the Bitcoin space in Africa, at least initially. We’ll be gradually growing out maybe 5-10 years into other geographies, but our main focus is Africa for the benefits, for the reasons that I’ve been talking about throughout—that’s the main reason why we’re talking about Africa specifically. We see huge, tremendous potential in these geographies, so it makes sense for us to go, You know what? There aren’t Bitcoin VCs, really, so we might as well position ourselves to actually plug in this whole other scene, which is not only from a developer perspective or from a ventures perspective—I mean, there are still a lot of services that we need. A lot of projects are working on it, but they don’t necessarily have capital or can’t wait for foreign investments to come in. It makes sense to pull the existing capital on the geography and then actually invest them into these startups. So that’s the major goal that we have with regards to Recursive in general. And another thing is, Recursive Capital isn’t trying to look at this as passively investing—a lot of our time is spent thinking about ways to actually contribute value to the space outside of just funding companies. Hence why we also have two other arms under Recursive, which is Recursive Labs as well as Recursive Research, Recursive Research handling a lot of the R&D from our side, which is looking at the space, analyzing trends, seeing where we could plug in some of these values, what are some of the problems being faced, some of the solutions that are necessary for us to get to a stage where want to be at. So, looking at companies that are tackling those issues—all of that kind of research is done with Recursive Research. And then with regards to Recursive Labs, the primary purpose of that arm would be actually pumping out some ventures to prove out not only the space, but also to practically contribute to the space. So if we see any sort of deficits with regards to products, we’re definitely not gonna wait for startups to emerge—we’re gonna actually be pumping out our own as well. So another thing is actually helping companies integrate Bitcoin and Lightning. Now, the main reason for that is we’ve talked quite a while with a lot of companies that aren’t necessarily Bitcoin companies from our perspective, but still want to benefit from having Bitcoin onboarded onto their services and some of these things. So from that point of view, instead of actually just providing capital and investing in them—since our focus is Bitcoin, we can’t directly do that—we can, through Recursive Labs, provide them with this expertise to actually integrate into Bitcoin and Lightning, and that would be in exchange for equity. So that’s another angle we’re exploring. So that’s Recursive Capital, Recursive Research, and Recursive Labs, and how the entire structure is. We’re currently raising for a $1 million fund with regards to Recursive Capital, so we’re actively looking for investors to grow out our portfolio and continue to actually help out the space. Currently we have Bitnob on board, so we’re looking for a lot more Bitnobs—a lot more apps and services that are helping contribute to the space. So yeah, that’s really the vision with regards to Recursive and what we’re doing.

Stephan Livera:

That’s great. And as I’ve seen, I’m not really up to date on what’s happening with Bitnob, but I have seen Bitnob is doing Lightning as well. So to your point, as you were saying, you want to really drive the Lightning support, Lightning adoption, because that obviously enables this vision of really fast and cheap payments. And so are you seeing much in the way of Bitcoin commerce take place in Africa in your conversations? Are you seeing people paying their suppliers in Bitcoin and that kind of thing?

Abubakar Nur Khalil:

Yeah. It’s happening in pockets, really. It’s not happening en masse compared to other parts of the world where you have merchants directly accepting Bitcoin. But then again, a lot of people are doing work trying to get whether it’s local grocery stores to actually accept Bitcoin, or trying to get large chains to accept Bitcoin. Now, currently some of the other ways people are paying through Bitcoin is via gift cards, either buying them through Bitrefill, where they go to Spur, for example, this bar in Lagos where they have these gift cards that they use which they purchase through Bitcoin. Another thing is, there are companies that allow you to send Bitcoin to an address and then they make a bank transfer on your behalf. So these are companies like Coinprofile that a lot of people use—I use it myself. And another thing is we have companies like Patricia as well, which give you Bitcoin in debit cards to actually have, so you can be funding that with Bitcoin and actually using it practically on a day-to-day. Another avenue is Pay With Moon, which is a great company. And that specifically was with regards to having a virtual Visa card that you can spend on online services, and even to some extent physical services as well. But it’s one of those things where you want to have the simplest UX for individuals, because again, that’s gonna be the largest convincing argument for them, because you’re coming from our perspective of being Bitcoiners. A lot of this has to do with us juggling around and running through service A, service B, whereas an average person like, Wait—this is not worth it. I might as well just use my existing MasterCard or Visa card. So again, we’re gonna be seeing a lot more people integrate Bitcoin and Lightning. And the reason why I’m more focused on specifically Lightning is because, like you mentioned, this is not only providing them access to Bitcoin, but providing them access to actually transacting micropayments cheaply—instantly as well—which is unheard of on any other monetary network, and providing this on both a local level and on a global level really has a lot of benefits, really, if you think about it from not only a resident’s perspective, but also from the perspective of commerce in general, day-to-day spending. So we’re gonna be seeing a lot more services either to integrate Bitcoin or Lightning, or providing these normal on-ramp off-ramps, whether it’s physical MasterCards, Visa cards, or even getting stores to accept Bitcoin. So there’s gonna be larger pushes for that through companies like Bitnob and some of these other companies we’ll be investing in. But yeah, we’re not exactly at that stage where I could walk into my local store and pay with Bitcoin.

Stephan Livera:

Of course, yeah. And to be honest, there’s few countries in the world that you could do that. So one other area I wanted to ask you is, for years, there’s been this narrative of banking the unbanked, right? This idea that there are people who have been shut out of the financial system for whatever reason—maybe they don’t have a proper proof of address that they can use to properly KYC and therefore get access to normal fiat banking, and now Bitcoin is gonna help them. That’s been the narrative. Now in practice, what has happened in some cases is just people who already have really good fiat banking access just get into Bitcoin because they’ve got the wealth. So I’m curious, from what you’ve seen in terms of your discussions, do you see it like a lot of the people getting into Bitcoin already have normal fiat banking access? Or is it like, genuinely, Bitcoin is actually banking the unbanked?

Abubakar Nur Khalil:

Yeah. A lot of parts is because of the pushes we’re seeing from a lot of average individuals either erecting projects and whether it’s small geographies or small rural areas where they’re like, Okay, let’s onboard these individuals to actually use Bitcoin practically, so giving them whether it’s through USSD codes, having some sort of mechanism. Since a lot of them have mobile phones, penetration rates is really, really high on this part. Having them have these existing technologies they have to actually spend Bitcoin—a lot of projects are doing that. And we’re seeing, like you mentioned with regards to individuals that already have money and are already on the fiat system, it’s an easy transition for them. Hence why a lot of the people that we see using Bitcoin already have bank accounts. And it’s one of those things where a lot of the wallets in existence do not necessarily require you to have a bank account, but they do have mechanisms for you to use your bank account to fund your Bitcoin wallet to buy the Bitcoin. For a lot of them, how else would they get their Bitcoin? So because of that sort of integration, we’re seeing a lot of people who already have bank accounts actually getting onboarded to Bitcoin. But again, there’s a lot of push to actually get those who are unbanked, because they’re the ones that start to benefit the most from the perspective of financial freedom. And again, all the costs associated with running a bank account or having one, or even some of the requirements like you mentioned, some of them require you to have utility bills, which some of these individuals that live in some of these other parts don’t necessarily have the adequate paperwork. Some of them are not even documented to begin with, so how do you even KYC that? Whereas we have Bitcoin, which has no KYC, no requirements, no nothing, no discrimination, there isn’t any requirement other than being able to generate a seed. So from that perspective, we’re seeing, and we are pushing, for a lot of actual unbanked individuals to get onboarded onto Bitcoin. And the way we’re going about this is, again, tapping its existing infrastructure like USSD codes, or even using feature phones and having apps that work on those feature phones to get them onboarded. Another thing obviously is, those that do have smartphones, which the number has been growing year-over-year, to actually have some of these apps and services that don’t necessarily require a bank account. All you have is access to actually paying, whether you’re paying physically at some sort of spot to actually buy this Bitcoin if you have cash, which a lot of people have cash whether you’re banked or unbanked. So a lot of these avenues we have to tap into to get them viable and easy from a UX perspective as well as an on-ramp to get into Bitcoin. But like you mentioned, a lot of the onboarding really is happening through people with existing bank accounts, and those that don’t have bank accounts we’re definitely looking to push that more towards getting them to actually get banked. But yeah, we’re seeing a lot of it improved definitely year-over-year.

Stephan Livera:

Yeah, interesting. And also with the research of Recursive, what kinds of research projects do you see being undertaken there? Is it things like, Okay, we’ve seen smartphone adoption rise, so therefore we can drive this kind of thing? Or, What kinds of existing infrastructure can we piggyback on? As you said, the USSD codes. What kinds of things are you seeing that could be a research project idea inside the Recursive Research umbrella?

Abubakar Nur Khalil:

Yeah, so it spans quite a lot, especially when it comes to general research we do. So we’re not only doing things like researching trends, obviously, we’re also looking at drafting up internal reports of existing portfolio companies. Again, the reason for doing that is to check up on our investments and see how they are doing, how is the adoption with regards to the services and the apps that they have? Another thing is ways of improving it, because like I said, we’re not trying to be passive investors. So from our perspective, a lot of our work is not only seeking out these ventures, but helping them improve and provide more value to the actual wider ecosystem. So things like looking at what are they’re missing out on, what are some of the things that they’re doing that isn’t necessarily great for the company or individuals are complaining about that you could actually fix up? Another thing, like you mentioned, is when we analyze some of these trends that we’re looking at, whether it’s increased smartphone penetration or looking at the rise of automated USSD codes is definitely to look at it within the Bitcoin context to see, like you mentioned, how can we plug into this infrastructure to actually boost some of this adoption that we’re looking to have? Another thing is to look at, even from the perspective of Bitcoin, what are some existing tech that we have from Bitcoin that isn’t necessarily being leveraged on, on the ground? So for example, the one that comes to mind immediately is Lightning. I mean, there are individuals around the world that are taking the next step of even having third layer protocols like Impervious AI as well. So looking at how we could plug into the existing ecosystem of tech that we have existing in Bitcoin. We spend a lot of our time doing that as well. So like I mentioned, the research spans quite a lot, looking at the space that we’re in, how we can improve it, looking at Bitcoin itself, some of the technologies that exist, and how we can actually domesticate them, so to speak, and provide this tremendous value for average individuals.

Stephan Livera:

Yeah, that’s great to hear. Okay, so I think that’s probably a pretty good overview. And yeah, thanks for joining me and sharing some insights into what’s going on there as well as what you are working on, whether that’s Qala or Bitcoin Trust or Recursive. Any closing thoughts or things you want to leave with the listeners? And also where can people find you online if they want to get in touch or get involved somehow?

Abubakar Nur Khalil:

Yeah. So I’ll start with the last because is the easiest. The easiest way definitely is Twitter. So my handle is @ihate1999. And with regards to parting words, I mean, I just want individuals to first and foremost have it in mind that really when it comes to financial freedom, the only option, really, is Bitcoin. And that may sound like just a maxi talking, but at the end of the day, there’s a reason why, if you see breaches of either financial freedom or liberties in general, you see people flock to Bitcoin. And this is on a case-by-case basis. I mean, you’re talking about things that happening currently, whether it’s Ukraine or whether it’s stuff that happened in Canada with regards to the truckers as well—you always see the individuals flocking to Bitcoin. And the reason is because it’s tried and tested. It’s one of those things where over time it’s gonna get more resilient and get more robust from a solutions perspective. And again, this is a monetary network. We’ve gone past the stage of just buying and selling, and some of these early stage adoption use cases that we’ve seen. And this is moving into the realm of actual financial freedom. So allowing individuals to not only own the money that they have, but be able to spend it indiscriminately across the world. I mean, no one’s gonna be clamping down, no censorship—none of that. And this is the first time in history that we have such a monetary network that’s not only accessible, but also decentralized and devoid of any one state controlling it. So I think if you haven’t heard about Bitcoin, get into it, read about it. If you already know about Bitcoin and you’ve been pissed off by toxic maxis, remember: they don’t own Bitcoin—no one owns Bitcoin at the end of the day. So get back into the game and really see how you could continue using it, because this is a movement, and it’s only gonna get bigger and better over the years. So yeah, welcome to financial freedom and get into Bitcoin.

Stephan Livera:

Fantastic, well I really enjoyed chatting with you, and thank you again for joining me.

Abubakar Nur Khalil:

Yeah, likewise. Thanks for having me.