Paolo Ardoino - What’s Going on

Hi, you're listening to Stephan Livera podcast, a show about Bitcoin and Austrian economics, brought to you by Swan Bitcoin. As I'm recording this, I'm in Amsterdam, so we've just been at Bitcoin Amsterdam, the conference put on by the Bitcoin Magazine team. So it's been an excellent experience, and I've got a great show for you on this episode with Paolo Ardoino from Bitfinex and Taproot. Together, and we talk a bit about what's going on in Lugano. Now, this show is brought to you by Swan Bitcoin, and Swan is putting on a fantastic conference coming up. It's called Pacific Bitcoin. It'll be in LA, California, November 10th and 11th. There is an awesome lineup of Bitcoiners coming, whether they are speakers or just people attending. We have people like Michael Saylor coming, Lynn Alden, Pierre Richard, Alex Epstein, Jeff Booth, Greg Foss, Alex Gladstein, Mark Moss, and so many more. It'll be hosted Known for being a premier venue for entertainment, productions and events, there'll be three tracks in terms of stages going, there'll be workshops, there'll be side events, there will be a VIP party for those people purchasing the VIP pass, there'll be a private VIP lounge, and Michael Saylor has said he thinks it'll be the event of the year, so don't miss it. Go and get your tickets, get together with some of your friends, get the tickets over at pacificbitcoin dot com, use code LIVERA. Brains are a Bitcoin mining software and services company, you can get Which is aftermarket firmware that you can install on a range of different Bitcoin mining ASIC machines. Now check on the website which models are supported. They've, they've got the Antminer X19, Antminer, Antminer S17, and some of the various lines there. You can even subscribe to their newsletter so that you know when new models are now being supported. Brains also operate Brains Pool. This was previously known as Slush Pool, but all the branding has now been unified under the Brains umbrella. So those of you using- Brains OS Plus, you can point your hash rate to any pool, but if you point it towards Brain's pool, you get zero percent pool fees. So make sure you go and check out the website, it's b r a i i n s dot com. Now, when it comes to securing our Bitcoin, we need to use hardware. CoinKite dot com are the creators of my favorite Bitcoin hardware signing device, the Coldcard Mark IV. So this is the newest version, it's out now, it's got two secure elements, it has NFC support, it has more RAM and a faster CPU, Transactions are signed faster, it's a very reliable performer, and you can set it up without plugging it into a computer, which is one of my favorite features. Now, you can use micro SD card to move things back and forth, or you can use NFC, or if you're a beginner, just directly plug it to the computer. Now, don't forget, CoinKite also have a range of other products, such as the TapSigner, or the BlockClock, or the SeedPlate, so you can find all of that over at CoinKite dot com, and you can get a discount Paolo, welcome back to the show.

Hey Stefan, thank you for having me again.

So, you know, we spoke recently, and we spoke a lot about, about a range of things, but, today, look, we're gonna chat about Lugano and what's going on there. I think it's interesting to see the number of initiatives and things that are all happening in this one city, one town, one area. So, do you wanna just tell us a little bit about how some of this got started and got off the ground?

Yeah, so as you know We have been, as Bitcoin Ex and Tether, we have been always, involved in, i-in, in helping, companies, people and, in public administrations into getting to Bitcoin. But I feel like, most of the efforts that we have always done or our community have, has always done, were focused on really huge scale approaches. And that is really hard, right? So if you try to get to, you know, maybe a country like France and trying to push them to adopt Bitcoin in a significant way at the high, big scale, that is almost impossible, right? Takes so much effort. But, and so it's really difficult to measure the impact of what you are doing. But in a smaller city like Lugano in Switzerland, right? That is, you know, anyway, understand finance really well Understand, technology really well. It's, it's a seventy thousand inhabitant PCT, so it's a far more controlled environment. So working directly with the administration, we could actually understand the impact that we would have, right? So in a way, the way I see it is, is, is a template. Lugano can be the template on a wider scale, approach and option So I like also to compare what is happening in El Salvador, and so what we are doing as companies in El Salvador, with, what we are doing in, in Lugano. So two different, one country that is also an, an emerging market, developing country, and also, and instead on the other side, you have a rich Swiss city, right? So two different stories. Let's see, let's learn from the two sides of the medal, and then we can tweak, we can tune the educational- Projects that we have, the, integration with, with commerce, with local shops, so all that is much easier if you have an easy access to the entire territory, right? So if you can walk by every restaurant that is, is, allowing Bitcoin payments to understand the struggles, to understand what they're, you know, what they like, what they don't like, how we can improve this situation. So that is exactly what we, what is happening in Lugano, and all was possible thanks to, like, the me- The mayor and his administration, administration are extremely forward-looking, right? So they understand technology. There are in Lugano, there are three universities am- among seventy thousand inhabitants, so it's a lot, right? So it speaks really highly about their interest in education So we found the perfect place to start with, multiple initiatives in parallel and then from the merchant education, R&D on, on, on, on mining with, you know, green energy and, and so on.

Gotcha. And so in terms of the website, when I was having a look at some of the, what's going on with the initiatives, I saw these numbers up there. There's a hundred million and three million in Swiss francs. So do you wanna tell us a little bit about what that money is for? Who's, who's providing that and what's it going towards?

Yeah, so when you want to help an ecosystem, it's important to provide a way to bring people into that ecosystem from the outside and grow them from the inside as well. Right. So a similar approach we are having in, in El Salvador, where, you know, as, as Bitfinex and Tether, we have donated, initially thirty-six Bitcoin, but we are increasing our, our, you know- donations and efforts and, and, and, and expenditure during the year, because we believe that, it's important to provide the tools from the inside, well, from the outside to the inside in order to grow, the expertise and, and, and the technical knowledge, in, in, in the city or in the country when it comes to El Salvador. So the fund was, the two funds are really important. The smaller fund, the three million, a Swiss franc fund, is actually Really being in use now because we have ordered more than one thousand, point of sales that have been already in part distributed to the merchants in the city. So only a few merchants, so we started with a pilot of, now we are around, twenty to thirty merchants, to test, to, to, to test, the Lightning Network integration and the Tether integration. the first merchant was actually McDonald's, and I think that was a ton of, of interest, on, on Twitter around that. So I was talking to, a guy that is working there, and in one day they peak two thirty transactions in, in Bitcoin. So it, it's, it's not Not bad, right? Being the, being at the beginning. So we plan to, now that, the point of sale has been smoothed out, we plan to expand, the offering really quickly to, one thousand merchants and then go up to two point five thousand merchants by the end of two thousand and twenty thirty. So, also the approach that we are having with m-merchant is, is, is quite, scientific, right? So we, we're not like they get a pause and, then we forget about them. We give, give them a pause, point of sale, but, they have different toolings to tweak the way they, you know, the payments are handled. So they have a slider that can choose, they can choose how much they want to, to sell or keep in Bitcoin. So i-is something that the way we are approaching things is although I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm a Bitcoin, a Maxi, you could say that, but, I think that for merchants is kind of a topic to say, to go to them and say, "Well, now you have to keep everything that you get in Bitcoin, right?" So we wanted to create this, educational process and, you know, confidence process where they can increase the, the amount of Bitcoin that they can keep in, in their wallet the more they get confident. And, Quickly on the bigger fund. The bigger fund is actually, it didn't start yet, so we are still setting up the, the, the fund structure, and the aim is to, help startups that want to reclocate on the territory, right? Again, so usually, when, when cities do this type of, of, events with this- The proposed or get involved in, in these type of initiatives, they want to make sure that, you know, their city is not going to be used as a PO box where, you know, the company set up, but there is no one actually living on the territory, right? So the only reason for the city to do this is, well, one of the few reasons for the city to do it is to make sure that the territory remains vibrant, young, and always ready to follow, technology. So it's important that, of course, there is a fund that help people to relocate here, to grow their, their startups, so we, we really look forward for, you know, amazing Bitcoin centric companies, being set up in Lugano, and few of them are coming, especially when it comes to the R&D on, on green, green energy and mining. There is, there is an interesting company just moving here in Lugano, renting, a big place so they can put their machinery. And, also, you know, teaching to the university, but also taking back from the university in terms of, engineering and, you know, there are two really engineering focused on, of, focused on universities in Lugano. So that's, that's, that's why, that's what happened here

Interesting. And so for, let's say there are listeners out there, maybe they are Bitcoin builders and they're thinking about potentially going to Legano, what would the process be like for them if they would-- is it like applying for a grant or is that, is that the kind of structure that they are looking at here or what's the approach going to be to try to attract business, Bitcoin businesses?

So more than a grant, we plan to, so we are setting up this fund that will be a classic VC fund, but we'll f- be focusing on technologies that- That we do care about. And, I can tell you, probably this is the first time I make it public, but there will be also a hole punch slash, slash tags fund, incubation fund as well, right? So we are creating multiple funds, each one for, different technologies, because it's important that there is enough capital to run operations also in the city, so that people aren't strangled when, when, you know, they come to live in Switzerland. And, but yeah. It's Bitcoin Lightning, a-and whole punch slash, and slash tags, dedicated funds.

Fantastic. So that's, that's really cool to see. And so then in terms of attracting people, is the idea that the city is going to try and attract people who aren't currently in Switzerland? So like, would they be having to, like, you know, apply for visas and things like this to kind of, you know, to come and work? Because I guess the idea, as you're saying, is they want people to actually come and live in the city and not just sort of From the city and still be elsewhere around the world.

Yeah, so well, Lugano is looking for people, relocating from a- other areas, from Switzerland or outside of the world, outside of Switzerland. So for example, we are seeing an interesting inflow from people, living in Zug, right? Right. So our company is actually having PO boxes in Zug and looking at, Lugano as, as, as a potential new residence for themselves in the city. So actually, we had around twenty people already Moving, already moving from, Zug and Zueic or from this h-upper part, northern part of Switzerland into Lugano in the last, six months, and, five companies already established here and other twenty are looking to relocate here in Lugano. So things actually are moving, especially of course there is the, there are the fans, but the most important, exciting part is, is the direct connection with the city, right? So, any- Anyone can go and set up a meeting with the mayor, with his administration, get his advice, and, you know, they-- you really feel part of something here, right? So again, i-is a city that is a smallish city, seventy thousand inhabitants, so it's no Dubai, it's no Milan, it's no Rome, it's no Paris, of course. But, it's a city that you can walk around everywhere, it's a beautiful lake, mountains, and the administration is like-- the administration understands really well the importance of, of, Being on the or jumping on the train now, right? Lugano historically was and is, is still one of the three biggest cities when it comes to wealth So there is, Zurich, Geneva, and Lugano. So Geneva is a bit more on the French side, then Zurich is on the German side, and Lugano is on the Italian side, right? The three languages that are, spoken in, In Switzerland. But, you know, until, the last, decade, Lugano was and Geneva and, Zurich were making a killing on banking, and they still do to a certain extent. But, I think that recently, Europe, including Switzerland, has become more an even playing field with, when it comes to banking And so a lot of banks consolidated in, in the entire Switzerland after the two thousand and eight crisis. And so I think that Switzerland is, really well suited to be, you know, at the forefront of, financial technology innovation, right? Or, and, and finance in general. So they understand finance really well, they understand money really well, and so they don't want-- They don't, they understand that if they are like the fifteenth country to really- show interest to, to Bitcoin, they will lose a trade. And, you know, Switzerland has the Swiss franc. You know, if, if you don't have dollars, you want dollars. If you have dollars, you want Swiss francs. That's how it goes when it comes to money in the fiat world. But, If you add then the two, you can argue that the two strongest and independent currencies in the world are actually the Swiss franc and, and, and Bitcoin, right? So Swiss franc is, is the, the monetary policy of Switzerland is extremely more thorough than what we have been seeing in, for example, from the US or, or, or Europe, right? So, is, is, the, cent- central bank of Switzerland has been much more, restrictive in what they did in, in during the- The copy period and all in these recent times, and also they have been providing clarity and regulations on, on Bitcoin and crypto since, 2015. So, and this is quite important, Rand Finma, the regulatory body in Switzerland, has been providing clarity and has been providing regulations for cryptocurrencies since a lot of years, seven years now, right? That when, you know, most of the other countries were still picking their noses because they were completely, you know, you know, still, still Sleeping, sleeping on, on this new technology. So that's why I like Switzerland and, they have actually a good chance in attracting a ton of people here. I mean, also I knew, I know some friends that are planning to move from, from Dubai, from Australia. We have people relocating from, from, also Ukraine. And, and the city also, the beautiful part of it is that the city is, is involved in helping actually people relocating, right? They understand that the main struggles are regular locating here, so, if you don't have an, an, if you don't have an European passport, takes time effort to relocate in, in, in, in Switzerland, but the city is helping and helped already many from the, from, living abroad to relocate in, in, in Lugano. So, and also banking, right? So you want to come here, maybe with a, w-w, and open a bank account. And, banking, I know that also in Dubai, in Singapore, although, you know, they are crypto-friendly places, still banking isn't that easy, right? So, and, Switzerland has a really thorough approach to banking, and yet After the third of March, when we announced the Plan B, we are seeing, we are sitting around the table every few weeks with different banks, and they are starting to onboard crypto people. And that is a huge achievement because, you know, now banking understands that they can suddenly start to offer other services, like, other services to, to their customers. And, that's something that I really like to see because I, I think that, they understand that, you know, they, they shouldn't be superseded by the technology, but they should embrace the technology

I see, yeah. and as you mention around having people use Bitcoin around town, I think one thing obviously Switzerland people don't really know, but Switzerland has no capital gains tax, from what I understand, although there is a wealth tax, but still no capital gains tax means you can spend your Bitcoin, if you are, Switzerland based, and so that is an interesting idea because, you know, people talk about this idea of, oh, Bitcoin legal tender, but really if you just remove capital gains tax- tax, then you're, you're okay to spend your Bitcoin without having to do tax events and so on. Now, of course, that may be a different story for tourists and things like this, but in terms of locals or people who are residents of Switzerland, then that's interesting to see and maybe we will see more adoption from that perspective, just because it eases the friction. so I'm curious, from a Bitfinex point of view, are you getting involved there from the merchant side? Like, are the merchants actually using Bitfinex in terms of getting, like, if they want Some fiat out of that, or like what, how does it work for the merchants in Lugano who want to, let's say, take a split in some Bitcoin and some fiat?

Yeah, so at the moment, they are, the merchants are using this point of sale that is, provided by GoKrypto, and, GoKrypto is using BitcoinEX Pay as a backend. So as BitcoinEX Pay, we didn't have the, the full setup also with the physical device, right? So in many places works so you can go directly with the- Phone, right? So you have the phone and you show a QR code and that usually works. But, in, in Switzerland, we have done, a thorough investigation at the beginning, right? So, and that is part- to me, if you want to get the entire city to adopt a new system, there are a few things you have to do. First of all, it ha-- it has to be free for them, so that's why we wanted to do the experiment, and the cost of the point of sale are fully covered. The second is that you need to give, to the merchants the ability to, you know, remain, one hundred percent in fiat or move the slider and decide how much remain in Bitcoin. So that is, that is This is extremely important, right? So these are, definitely the, the, the most important parts. And then the third one is that, believe it or not, they want to print, they want the point of sale that prints the receipt, right? So they have all integrated, so they have, you know, you know, the restaurants are pretty busy, so you want your guy going around, we have this, this point of sale, boom, show the QR code, pay, receipt printed, connected to their cashier, right? So they don't want to have like ten, ten Systems that don't talk to each other. That is a barrier for, for, for integration. And yes, I know that there are many companies that are actually, you know, having these smartphone apps that are great, right? But the problem is they are good for, the Bitcoin believers already, right? So the ones that, They don't care, they, that's fine. They will export an ex-pred-excel spreadsheet, they will merge the, the, the current cashier system with the Excel spreadsheet, and they are happy. But it's not all like that, right? People need to have one single system. They, you know, you, you are talking to old ladies in their grocery store, right? So that is, that is, that is the most important thing to solve

Okay, so could you just walk us through then, as an example, let's say you're a Bitcoiner, you wanna go there as a tourist, and you wanna, you wanna spend some Bitcoin, what does it look like? Is it basically they ring it up on a register and that prints out a receipt, and that receipt has a QR code, and then that's what you scan and pay, or is it like it's actually on their little, you know, credit card terminal, same thing?

Yeah, it's basically, so what they have is like, okay, so they have this That have a, has a phone inside, as a, a phone that, with like over-the-air updates and so on, has a printer here, and also has NFC still on, on the top, right? So basically it's just a, a phone in a nice box with a printer and, and, the NFC well exposed. So this- This point of sale can do, crypto payments, so, can basically, you know, you, you tap the amount, you say, okay, I want to pay in Bitcoin, I want to pay in Tether, and we'll basically show the QR code, so you, you're scanning with the code, with your phone, you pay, and, and create the, the receipt. And also has the support also for, for some Bitcoin cards that are, and, and then cards that are coming out now, and also Visa Mastercard, Mastercard. The merchants now to have one single point of sale that does everything. Obviously, the, the most critical part for us was limiting the number of currencies that we were offering because we don't want, you know, others We wanted to limit to just three currencies, like the, the Lugano stablecoin that is called, Luga. There is the Tether and Bitcoin, right? So the two biggest, so the biggest, most important, currency, Bitcoin, then Tether as a stablecoin, and then Luga. So we really didn't want to spread the, the focus on like fifteen different currencies with almost no usage, right? So it's important to us also that we stick to the, the narrative that people Should use, you know, mainly Bitcoin actually. but yeah, everything is integrated, is integrated with the cashier, right? So when you pay on, on, and, with your phone, your, the, the device or the point of sale that the, that, for example, the, the shop owner has, will print a receipt and will directly talk to their, his cashier, right? The cashier is the thing that, you know, has all some cash inside and basically does a little bit of accounting. So at the end of the day You, you know how much, how much you earned and so on and so forth, right? So it's all integrating that way.

Back to the show in a moment. A new sponsor for the show is Blockstream. They have the Green Wallet. It's an industry-leading Bitcoin and liquid wallet. Gain access to powerful features such as multi-signature security, full node verification, and Tor support. Blockstream Green offers the option to secure your wallet with their MultiSig Shield, where one key is held on your device and another is held on Blockstream's server. Servers, enabling you to protect your wallet with two-factor authentication, you can have time locks or a third backup key to ensure you always retain full ownership of your funds. They also have integration with hardware wallets like Blockstream, Jade, Ledger, and Trezor devices to get you the best of both worlds. Other Bitcoin wallets offer a choice between convenience, security, and control, but with Blockstream Green, you get all three. Blockstream Green is available for iOS, Android, or desktop. You can find it over at blockstream dot com slash green. Are you still using a plain old block? Block Explorer. Bitcoin has grown beyond that. It's not just a single layer anymore, it's a fully fledged multi-layer ecosystem. Mempool dot space is your comprehensive Bitcoin explorer covering this ecosystem from the mempool to the blockchain to second layer networks like Liquid and recently the Lightning Network. So when you go to mempool dot space, you can see the projected fee rates that are required for low, medium or high priority. You can search Lightning channel opens and closes, you can search for Lightning nodes, you can even host it yourself. Using your own full node distribution, for example, Armbrol, Raspiblitz, and many more. Now, if you are with an enterprise, Mempool.Space offers customized mempool instances, so you can have your own company's branding, you can have increased API limits, and much more. Go learn more over at Mempool.Space/enterprise. And lastly, Unchained Capital. Unchained Capital can help you create a multi-signature vault. So for those of you who are unsure about your Bitcoin security or perhaps the The value of it is going up over time, and it's now time to take that next step. Unchained can help you. You can use the Consio onboarding program where they will ship you the hardware if you need it, and they will do a call with you to teach you how to create your vault as well as withdraw from the exchange or out of your single signature hardware wallet. This can give you that additional peace of mind knowing that you are removing single points of failure, and if you are in various states in the US, Unchained Capital have also launched a trading desk allowing you to purchase Purchase Bitcoin directly into your multi-signature vault, so go and check out the website for that. All of that is available over at Unchained dot com and use code Livera for a discount on the Concierge onboarding program. And now back to the show. Gotcha. Yeah, and I can understand the, the point of that because, yeah, as you mentioned, currently it would otherwise take a lot of manual wrangling or at least some manual accounting or at least giving it to another account and saying, "Okay, here's the fiat side of it and here's the Bitcoin side of

Back end Excel, matching it together or getting a CSV and stuff like this. So I can certainly see, the appeal there. But, yeah, I'm, I'm looking forward to, going to Lugano and checking it out. I think it'll be fantastic to, be able to, you know, pay in person with Bitcoin, it's always fun. I guess probably the other big question that I think people are going to have is, why bother trying to drive adoption from the top down? Why not bottom up only? Right? Like, I can understand maybe there Think about that kind of question.

Well, it's not one or the other, right? So we are actually, as Bitfinex and Tether, we are doing both, right? We are creating, technologies that, everyone can use and they don't have any control, like Open and, and Keyed, that will have soon in the next couple weeks, will have support for Lightning, for example. bottom-up approach is, also in El Salvador, we are focusing on bottom-up approach and top-down approach at the same time, right? So it's, in the end, it's, you, you need government support if you want to move faster, right? So government has access to a ton of information like, universities that, and, and, and, and, so can improve the speed Of adoption. So I think it's quite utopic thinking that you can solve everything from the bottom up, because the reason the scare that I have, I'm, I'm fearful That if we don't move fast, we will let big tech companies try and, trying to steal the lunch from us, right? So we-- I want to be able to move as fast as I can with all the different, at least all the levels I can, in order to drive adoption, because if you start from the bottom, is the most, I understand that is the most pure approach, but still is, it might be too slow. So I prefer to Unified the two things and find, and then we meet in the middle, right? So on one side you have, you prepare like the, the ground from the top, from the bottom up, so people, the most like, knowledgeable people will already embrace the technology and start, you know, spreading out. But at the same time, if the government, if the administration of a city isn't comfortable, they can put limitations through the entire process. So of course, you know, we are all bi-bitcoin believers, so we say, okay, whatever limitation we will face, Bitcoin will overcome that. But I think that I really don't like to wait for, or to, you know, give the chance of, to others, to, to big tech companies to shift the narrative and trying to, you know, enter in territories that might be open to adopting blockchains, selling a blockchain that isn't Bitcoin. So To me, it's important that we do the two things in parallel.

I see. And so, I guess the other question people might be having is, what's the situation like in terms of how much power the city of Lugano has? Like, are they in a situation where, let's say, they are impacted by regulations coming in from the outside, like in f- at the federal level in Switzerland, or do they really have enough power, or, or at the canton level, or do they have enough power to really drive it forward in their own city?

So the beauty of Switzerland is that they have the federal level, cantonal level, and city level, and there is quite some independence between the, the, the three of them. So, they of course- Had to name Bitcoin, Tether, and Luga as de facto legal tender, right? So for example, the law of money is at the federal level, but still they could take independently the choice of Accepting Bitcoin payments for the taxes with no limits, and they can basically all the rest, they can do it by themselves. So that to me is, is already a great sign of independence, especially used by, you know, I'm used to Italy, right? So where nothing moves ever, and, so it's extremely refreshing to see what is happening here in, in, in- In Lugano. And of course, would be nice to have Bitcoin really, eventually as, as full legal tender, but, is already, in my opinion, is already good enough, right? So it's, it's, it's working, the, the, the, the city has embraced it fully, so it's more than I can ask.

I see. And so in terms of, people who are accepting Bitcoin today, so there's that video, the McDonald's video, which, yeah, I'll put that in the show notes if I can find that People who are listening now and thinking that they're going to visit sometime soon, what kind of merchants could they be paying Bitcoin?

So first of all, the, the first thing, so, the city and, you know, started from McDonald's be- because it's a big achievement, they have a ton of, of people throughout the day. But also, I had my, I pushed my, preferred restaurant, to, to accept, Bitcoin. So of course, I'm basically going there five times per week. So, to me is Of course, it's a no-brainer, and the school Gabani is an amazing meat restaurant with, is Italian cuisine in Switzerland, and i-is just insane, right? So I know that I'm, I'm, I'm doing some advertisement here, but when it comes to food, I'm super, always super excited. and, but also we ha-we, an art gallery also was onboarded a couple days ago, a watch dealer, and many other restaurants are, being onboarded, have been onboarded. Recorded, in, in the last, last three, four days. So now we are around twenty, but we plan to arrive to fifty, sixty, all in the center of the city by the event, and after the event, of course, this will continue to, you know, two point five thousand. So of course, to build the, the-- We announced the third of March to build, you know, the right, processes to build like the, you know, also the right communication with the merchant. It took a little bit of time, but now that things- All the technological parties there is working properly. Apart this morning that the Lightning had a small issue, so, so a couple of, of, of merchants were complaining already, but, we fixed that pretty quickly and now we, we are back on track.

Right, of course. And I know these, with these things there are always teething issues, and I know even with El Salvador, some users of the Chivo wallet were having some issues with Lightning, but I think most of those have now been ironed out as well. So, you know, I think these kinds of things are With, w- doing larger scale rollouts of Lightning, you know, it's early days still, but, I think a lot of Bitcoin people are excited to have that chance to go out there and truly live on Bitcoin if they can, right? If they can earn Bitcoin and spend Bitcoin and just not have to, or minimize the amount of fiat they have to touch or use, then, you know, all the better, right? So, do you wanna tell us a little bit about, i-is there anything else you wanna expand on with the students and what they're going to From what I've read, i-it sounds like there's some, like, there's gonna be some kind of tie-in with a university curriculum also.

Yeah. So there are three universities in Lugano, as I said, and all the three universities had agreed to work with, We, with this Plan B group, to design, Bitcoin and Lightning network courses, right? So two uni-- other universities are quite technical, so engineering style, and the other one is quite, is, is more business oriented. So we proposed, and we already had, a summer school, so two weeks where, prominent speakers came to Lugano and they teach lessons to To, around 100 students, selected students coming from everywhere in the world actually, and now we want to streamline that educational, process to, curricula courses during, the regular, year, in university, right? So of the two, more technical universities will focus on, Coding, of course, development in the Bitcoin and Lightning world, and the more business oriented university will focus on a bit more on, on the marketing aspects of it. so how you can-- so it's not about only tech, right? So how you can unders-- you need to understand how Bitcoin works if you need to help companies that have adopted Bitcoin to grow, how you do that, how you do the accounting part, how you do the legal side, and so on, right? So there are so many- Different faces to is, is like a dice where each face is, is a different job type that you can do. So that's, that's the role of the interaction, with the universities that we have

Yeah. And, so we touched on this a little bit earlier, you mentioned that there's going to be this fund in terms of Bitcoin startups who looking, who are looking to situate in Lugano, and have staff there and probably run their Bitcoin business there. i-it seems from the website there's also going to be some plan for a, a hub slash incubator. So is that going to be like a physical space or is it going to be more like, you know, just in the, in the city that people can come and, you know, be setting up their

So there is the plan is, is pretty much done in the sense that we are the final, stages of this plan. There is a plan to acquire a four stories building, where, you know, at the entrance, we want to have a Bitcoin cafe with, Bitcoin art. So with, we are, we are working with Satoshi Gallery and, and, and hopefully other, you know, designers, art, artists will, will, will It will be added later, but, we plan to have a pool inside the, in, inside the, let's say, the base floor, where there's this, there is this café with the art around, and then the other floors will be used for co-working space and, reac-recreative space and some offices. So we wanted to create a, a space for everyone to come enjoy coming to lectures, because there is a place also for lectures. And so doing meetups and, all, revolving around Bitcoin. So I feel like a city like Lugano, again, to, to give comfort, to give also to be the, to, to To, to provide a single point where people can find what is real, what they should learn and what isn't interesting, they should come to a specific place, right? So as you might know or might, might imagine, as soon as we launched the Plan B initiative Ton of, shit coiners and everyone started to pile on, on, on, on this initiative, right? So it happened that many projects, without saying anything, started to using, to use the Plan B marketing material to try to sell their product. And this is something that we want to avoid with all our forces. So, that's why we wanted to create a hub where people knew, know that inside that hub, we're trying to give, to provide them real information about Bitcoin and, and the real thing, right? So that's, that's the reason we have the

hub. I see, yeah. And I can imagine for people who are in the city and maybe they're not already Bitcoiners, they might just sort of see all these altcoiners descending Being on the town to try to shill things, but if they can see, let's say, there's a community hub there, okay, they teach Bitcoin there, oh, I can pay Bitcoin to buy my coffee there, okay, I'm sort of getting the idea here, like exactly what is this, what am I meant to do with Bitcoin? So I can imagine that. So let's chat a bit about the forum then. So basically, you are putting on basically a, a Plan B forum. So what is it?

So the Plan B forum is, NERCO-- Every year we plan to do this, right? So we wanted to have a forum that would unify our vision when it comes to Bitcoin and, and technology. So I'm, big sustainer of, big supporter of, of the, individual sovereignty concept, where, you know, you have to be financially free, and, you know, hold your own keys in order to, you know, be yourself to be free. But, to me As I said multiple times, in order to have the full individual sovereignty, you need to have also freedom of speech tools, for example, key and hole punch, and, and what Synonym is working on are, to me, the perfect complementary technologies to, to Bitcoin. And, but, on the freedom of speech, there aren't many, not many, events related to freedom of speech, around the world, right? So of course, Alex did a great job in, in Oslo, that I was really humbled. To be invited anywhere there as well. So, so that was really good, but we wanted to unify a little bit the industry and, the, the two types of industry in a single place, right? So who is working or who has direct experience on Bitcoin, so we have, you know, the most prominent speakers around, revolving around Bitcoin, and also, prominent speakers when it comes to, you know, freedom of speech. And so we had, we have We're going to have the Assange family, for example, the, at, the Foul family, of course, Park Jun-hyun. We, we are going to have, Also people from the, from law firms, explaining and, and, and discussing, debating on, on the, you know, code is freedom, right? So what we can expect from future regulations around the code, right? So if you write a piece of code, can someone come after you if that piece of code is used for any malicious activity or whatsoever, right? So what is the type of protection there? So, also we want to start discussing about the, the important- importance of, of, privacy in communication systems, right? Right? So we want to explain, you know, now something that is becoming a motto for myself is that to us, cloud is a scam and how to-- we, we are going to see w- how we can fight the prominent, position that cloud, solutions have in, in, in the current world and how we can create the tools that are, you know, communications tools, storage tools and so on that will fight that dominance, because, you know, when some- when, you know- she hits the fan, you, you really want to be ready with an alternative set of, private and enterprise solutions. I believe that also enterprise corporates should be really careful on where they keep their own files and their own data. And usually they trust the third party, but we can demonstrate to them that they don't need to trust any other party, or they don't need to use, other people, p-someone else backup solution when they can build their own and, you know, do it in a really decentralized way and fully encrypted way and so on. So there is so much to talk about, we are going to have also master classes. There is, Nick Zavo, Adam Beck, and, there is, James Longlo, Myself, Matthias Bus, there is John Carvalho, Giacomo Zucco, there is of course yourself and, so, so many. I mean, it's crazy that in two days we are feeding so much talent, so much knowledge. So, yeah, and, And I can tell you that will be a huge, announcement because we are also, Lugano is kind of, is, is collaborating with El Salvador, so that's, you know, we are trying to create this, mul- you know, more, you know, broader envir-environment. So there will be a huge an- announcement, in, in Lugano, made from El Salvador. so I'm, I'm super excited about that So it's going, if you listen to that, announcement, you are going to understand that, you know, the word, the Bitcoin word is becoming, you know, bigger and bigger, but the distances are becoming smaller and smaller

That's fantastic to hear. Yeah, I'm, I'm definitely looking forward to it. Obviously, the lineup is incredible, the, the speakers and the people that you've managed to pull together for this. And I noticed you've even got, the crypto couple, our friends Carla and Walker, so they'll be there helping host the show, and so that'll be, really cool. I, I noticed as well, you mentioned the, the anti-cloud comment. I was interested, so I, and I know this is something I, I believe, you know,

They should run their own, on their own, you know, box in their home and things like this. And we're, we are starting to see a resurgence, I think, because I think what happened is a lot of people went to, let's say, Google Drive, Apple Cloud, Dropbox, and now we are starting to see the, let's say, the maturation of other alternatives, things like Nextcloud and ways to, you know, run your own stuff. So I think that's interesting to see. And I, I presume then this is-- you're obviously supportive of that, whether that An individual doing it, or a community doing it, or a business doing it, I suppose that's-- or even a government might need to be concerned about that too, if in terms of where, where is their data being stored, and could they be doing things in a more self-sovereign way?

Absolutely. I think that, you know, given the current geopolitical situation, we can't not give, take anything for, for granted, right? So you don't-- as a country, even at government level, you don't want To have your, the data of your citizens being stored on a foreign, data center, right? So data and, that of course goes for the, public administration data, right? So you have like tax reports of every citizen, for example. But also if you are still a government and you have, you know, people going around, social media and creating ton of content, you can't allow or, or store in their private emails, store in everything from their digital private life. It's kind of scary to me that knowing that all this information can be stored on a data center outside of the boundaries of that jurisdiction. The reason is that eventually this data can be weaponized between governments, and that's something that, we, you know, governments should think about, seriously rather than, you know, kicking the can down the road because When, you know, I, I, I know that my, my, my sound apocalyptic, but, you know, that is, that is what Bitcoin for is, right, preparing for the worst, for the worst in the economy But also we should prepare for the worst in, in communication, in data, right? Data is, is, is the new gold, is, is, data is, is extremely valuable, and so leaving the data uncontrolled to, you know, some, big companies that first prom- promised to not be evil and now they, they, you know, they can be evil, I think that we-- that should be our priority now that money is almost fixed, right? So or at least there is a good alternative, now we need a good alternative. For, for, privacy and, and so for resiliency of data.

Yeah. And when it comes to Keith, is there anything, any other progress you can share at this point? Or I know you, you've probably got announcements and things coming up on that at the actual conference date as well.

So, Keith, we are going to launch before, the forum, the Lightning Network integration. So we support Eclair, LND, and C-Lightning, so that, that is going to be super cool. And, also we are going to launch on, a new project called, the future of the credit system, on, Lightning style channels. That is going to be an interesting, really interesting discussion and panel with, with an announcement. But also we are quite close to launch, the mobile version of Keed. So, well, I was able to run it on a, on a PinePhone. in a way, it's kind of cheating because I had just to compile everything for ARM. But, also the pure Android and iOS, versions are coming well together. So I, I cannot wait for that because that will give a huge boost to, to Keit in terms of adoption. We can't complain, it's going quite well, but, more than one hundred K people are, have already downloaded it. But, we, we plan to see a huge, increase in adoption as soon as mobile will come out.

I see, yeah. And I know there are, Bitcoiners out there who are eagerly waiting for the open sourcing as well, but, I think you've mentioned that's coming in, December, right?

Yes. So in December we start to roll out, open source part of the, of the infrastructure so that, people, for example, the chat, right, that is in Key, we want to cre-- is, we want to create this module that is like the module chat that is, fully open source, everyone can take it and Now you have all these, online multiplayer games, and, you can actually have a chat without infrastructure for once, right? That is something that, is extremely valuable. So you can bring down the cost of running, of running, games as well. And also with the, that, peer-to-peer, lightning-style, credit system, also you can imagine that gamers can actually start building, like, you know, if you have a game that have gold, iron, and wood Food and all this type of stuff, you can actually create all this system through the whole blockchain network and, and move it in them, as a credit IU. So, more, I don't want to spoiler too much, but it's going to be quite interesting also, To see. I like to explore how Lightning, so Lightning to me isn't just purely Lightning network, but is, is a concept, right? It's a protocol, how, how it can trustlessly, create a, a bond between two people that are going to, to send ton of transaction to each other.

Yeah. it's fascinating to think about. I'm, yeah, excited to see, what's happening there. I think it's probably a good spot to wrap up here. So, Paolo, for people who wanna find out more, where can they find out more

So for, Lugano, the Plan B Forum, you can go on planb dot lugano dot c h. In the header, there is Plan B Forum, and so if you want to, go to, you want to buy some tickets, you can find them there. Or there is Lugano at Lugano Plan B, on Twitter, myself at Paolo Ardoino or at Pit Phoenix or at Tether underscore to. And then- Thank you very much, Stephan. you are always so generous with time. Thank you.

So I hope you enjoyed the show. Go and get the show notes at stephanlivera dot com slash four two two. Thanks, and I'll see you in the citadels.