Anant Tapadia Bitcoin In India, Keeper, b4i conference

Hi, you're listening to Stephan Livera podcast, a show about Bitcoin and Austrian economics, brought to you by Swan Bitcoin. Today my guest is Anant Tapadia from BitHive. Now, he's also working with the team at Bitcoin for India. So this is a community organization trying to spread the good Bitcoin education around there in terms of networking some of the different meetups. together, as well as putting on a conference called Bitcoin for India. Now, I'm going to be doing a speech for them, just virtually, coming up soon, and just wanted to chat with Anant a little bit about the scene in India, as well as chat about the conference, and hopefully people out there can help get the word out there to any Indian friends they have or any relatives so that they can know about Bitcoin for India. Now, this show is brought to you by CoinKite. CoinKite make a range of Bitcoin hardware security products. Now, one that's quite relevant for India Would potentially be the TapSina. So the TapSina is a lower cost device, currently around forty dollars. This is an NFC enabled device, and you can use it with phone apps such as Nunchuk using NFC, so that makes it really slick and easy, and it's at a lower cost point, price point compared to, say, the Coldcard, which is an excellent device also. So there are all kinds of options which you can find over at CoinKite. For example, if you want the new version of the OpenDime, try the SatsCard, which you can also So go and check it out, all the products are over at coinkite dot com and use the code Livera to get a discount on your cold cards. The lead sponsor of this show is Swan Bitcoin and Swan makes it easy to learn about Bitcoin and also buy Bitcoin. Swan makes various resources available freely for the community, so for example, you can get a free copy of Inventing Bitcoin by going to swan dot com slash free book. Swan has also a range of resources in relation to Swan's cannon, so you can see various rabbit holes, for example, there's a privacy One, there's a security one, there are some generalised ones, all kinds of resources that are available for you to start stacking Bitcoin with Swan. Some of that educational content can also help guide you or coach you on the way dealing with the volatility of Bitcoin, so you can find all of this over at Swan dot com. For those looking for a software wallet for Bitcoin and Liquid, Green is Blockstream's industry-leading Bitcoin and Liquid wallet. It has powerful features such as multi-signature security, full node verification, and Tor support. Blockstream Green offers the option to secure the wallet using the multi-signature shield, where one key is held on your device and another is held on Blockstream's servers, and you have a two-factor authentication before Blockstream will sign using their key. Also, you have time locks or a third backup key to ensure that you retain Full ownership of your funds. Blockstream Green also includes integration with hardware wallets such as Blockstream Jade, Ledger or Trezor devices, so you can have the best of both worlds, cold storage combined with the full suite of features and security that Blockstream Green offers. It's available for iOS, Android or desktop, so you can get that over at blockstream dot com slash green. And now onto the show with Anant. Hey, Anant, welcome to the show. Hey, Stephen, how are you? Yeah, doing well. I'm actually here in Prague right now. For, for another conference, but chatting with you about a bunch of things, the, the Bitcoin scene in India as well as, you know, what you're working on, in terms of projects and, software in the space, as well as, Bitcoin for India. So, do you wanna just give a brief background on yourself? I know you maybe you're not super well known in the, in the English speaking Bitcoin world.

Yeah, yeah, I'm not, I'm not definitely not super well known. but yeah

On Bitcoin stuff, Bitcoin software for the last four or five years. started off with doing some lightning, you know, projects on the side and then got interested into actually going in full time into Bitcoin, and I think, that is where, where my journey started and, you know, the journey of Exa Wallet, which was our first app, started a few years back. So I've been working in this, space as a Bitcoin dev, you know, building on Bitcoin space for the last few years, and then, for- Fast forward to two thousand twenty-two, we have launched another app, Keeper. So, so yeah, that's in nutshell my story.

Great, yeah. And let's chat a little bit about the Bitcoin scene in India, because, as I understand, it's, it's had its ups and downs over the years, especially with the RBI's comments and the government comments around Bitcoin and quote-unquote crypto. Do you wanna just give us a, a flavor of what's the Bitcoin scene in India like?

So the Bitcoin scene in India is It's not like fixed as in it, it's different what it was six months back and different from what it was one year back. in short, it has been evolving and rapidly changing as you have alluded to, not just because of Bitcoin itself and the Bitcoin, you know, Bitcoin community, I will talk, talk about that in a second, but also because of, the other pieces in the whole landscape, for example, the regulatory landscape, for example, what's happening in the payment space with UPI, UPI- Two point zero e rupee and all that. So it's very, and even the crypto space. So all these, you know, all these pieces moving together makes the whole, scene very interesting. so yeah, that's, that's, that's how, how the Bitcoin scene in India looks like.

Could you just tell us a little bit about, how you're trying to grow the meetup scene?

So the meetup scene, so, the, the, the platform Bitcoin for India is, not something which, which is like years old, Single meetup, and, there was no, there was no like, like a roadmap or a plan that, okay, this is what we are gonna do in the, in the next five years. But it was more around the need for Bitcoiners to meet each other, and there was no Bitcoin only platform in India. And, we having a bunch of developers in India and a lot of people we know, we said, you know what, why not, why don't we do a meetup and see how it goes? So we did the first meetup in February, right, And since then, a lot of people have come up from different cities in India, and they've said, "Okay, we want to conduct a, meet up. Do you want to tell us how it works?" So we get on a Twitter space, or we have a, you know, quick phone call conversation, we tell them what worked for us, what didn't work for us, and we just help them, you know, promote their local, meet up. So it's mostly driven very locally as it should be. it has been happening, across, you know 20 meetups have, have happened since then. So it's very grassroots. It's not something, you know, we can, we can say where is it going to be the next one? People come up, come out of the woodworks. That's, that's another thing that, that's happening with Bitcoin for India. A lot of Bitcoiners are coming out of the woodworks that we didn't even know existed, and they're just getting connected to each other, you know, having meetups, you know, talking about interesting stuff that they are working on Twitter Spaces.

I might just comment as well that I'm seeing this happen in other places around the world also, that we're starting to see the rise of more Bitcoin only meetup groups, especially in various countries around the world where maybe historically there hasn't been a strong Bitcoin scene. so maybe that's something that's happening this cycle. So that's, great to see certainly. And I guess India obviously is an important country, over one billion people, you know, over one billion Indians out there, and I'm sure even with those ten or fifteen cities, that's, we're talking millions and Have some kind of local Bitcoin only meetup group in their area. So what kinds of topics have you seen, the meetup groups cover as their meetup topics?

So I wouldn't be able to do justice to exactly all of them, but I can, you know, recollect some of them because they're just like independently held. I have been to a few of them, but obviously, India is such a big country, so, so the, the topics really vary from, you know, technical, from a very technical Topic in, in cities like Bangalore, where, where it's, it's like a tech hub, to, very different, local language based, very non-tech, topics in a very different city. So it has varied a lot, but it covers the typical spectrum or the typical gamut of what we Bitcoiners typically talk about. It's around, Austrian economics, it's a-around Bitcoin philosophy, it's about Bitcoin network, it's about, you know, building on Bitcoin and stuff like that. we have- We have never had a reason or the need or anyone say, "Okay, we won't talk about Bitcoin trading." We obviously don't encourage that either, as in, you know, there are many more important things to learn for in Bitcoin before you get to how to make money. but that's not something people have asked for either. So, so it has been very encouraging to see how people have asked for the topics that they want to learn, and it has been, very positive in terms of the speakers who have come up in those, local places and, On about those topics.

Yeah, that's cool to see. And so I'm also curious if you could add any comment in terms of what you know about the peer-to-peer trading scene in India. Are people, doing that? I mean, from what I understand, in various cities around the world, there might be some Telegram chat room or a WhatsApp chat group or various chat rooms where people might coordinate like this, or in other cases, they're using platforms like Bisc or things like Huddle Huddle, you know, things like this. This, could you just explain a little bit about what the P2P scene is like in India?

So honestly, Stephen, the P2P scene in general, if we talk about P2P in general, has been way older and much wider than Bitcoin. The, the whole concept of P2P trading, when it comes to either using cash or using gold, and these other, s-s, you know, methods of payments, have been, have been widespread and, have always existed in India for a long time, right? So- People are used to do P2P trading, people are used to have, you know, assets that, that are bearer instruments, so which they hold themselves, right? Like gold and cash, and they, they understand what is self custody of those as- assets. So even they, if they don't put it on those terms, it is basically self custody. When you have cash with, in your pocket or gold in your house or, you know, on your neck, then that is basically self custody, right? So the, the whole concept of self custody Is where P2P trading really works. And, if you look around, there's, if you look at the, you know, stats, cash as a, as a means of, payment has, has a, has a huge percentage in India. So peer, peer-to-peer trading has always existed. Now, when it comes to Bitcoin, if you really try to map it, it is very, it is very obvious and a very, something that Brit- Indians know how to use and they're very comfortable with it, peer-to-peer trading. Or may not use a specific platform like Bisc or, something else. But one thing I know that, if someone wants to buy Bitcoin with cash in India, the buyer or seller will be-- are much more comfortable just, you know, walking up to each other and doing that as compared to, as compared to any other country when I was in UK or, you know, US or any other country. So that happens a lot. So it's not really something that you can measure, but just by, just anecdotally and just by knowing the nature of- Indians, we know that, peer-to-peer trading is quite, quite prevalent in India.

And a-as I understand also historically, platforms like Local Bitcoins were quite popular just around the world, and, perhaps in recent years, I hear that there's a lot of use of platforms like Paxful or Binance peer-to-peer, seems to be quite popular also in some countries. So for example, in Sri Lanka, I know Paxful used to be the most popular platform, and from what I've heard recently, it seems Binance peer-to-peer Seems to be the most popular platform, at least in Sri Lanka. I'm curious, do you hear about people using those kinds of platforms also?

Yes, yes, absolutely. So Paxful and, Binance, peer-to-peer or Vizirex as it is, you know, the part, the counterparty over here, is called. So yes, that is the most common institutional peer-to-peer platform in India. But I bet the non, non-platform based peer-to-peer trading is, much more in India. But yeah, these two

I see. And then, yeah, in terms of the level of education that people have, would you say-- I don't know if you have any comment on that, like, is it that people sort of, like, a-as an example, if you talk to an average person in some countries around the world, they might see Bitcoin, oh, it's a bit like a gambling thing, or it's a bit like, you know, or they might associate it with scams. Is there a similar perception if you talk to, just say, if you talk to the average man on the street, what's

Very different from the rest of the world, but they most likely compare it to, okay, this is like UPI or this is like one of the apps I have, wallet I have on the phone. So they have, the, the anchor for them is comparing it to the UPI wallets that they have, right? Which is, which as you know is, very widespread in Indian people use it a lot.

Actually, actually, just on this, could you just, just explain what is UPI for people who don't know, what's UPI?

So UPI is 2016 took off very well. The, the reason UPI took off very well in India isn't because obviously there were technical aspects to it, but also because the identity system in India is, fortunately or unfortunately, very well developed. So they have this system called Aadhaar, and, all your Aadhaar cards, which is your unique identifier, as in, you know, your, social security number or something like that, is associated with your bank account. And And that is not just associated with your bank account, it is widely used for everything from, you know, buying cars to what do you wanna do, it's associated with your ID. Now, with, with that Aadhaar card, there's a phone number also which is associated with your, your, you know, your bank account. So the combination of, the phone number, the bank account and Aadhaar card, Aadhaar linked together makes it very easy to have some kind of a universal payment interface. So what really happens in UPI is It is essentially an intra-bank transfer that you can do just with the help of your mobile number, right? Because your mobile phone number is linked to your bank, and let's say, you know, your phone phone number is linked to your bank, when I, send a mes- essentially it's a messaging system, but when a message goes that, okay, this person, this particular phone number has authorized a payment of, let's say, thousand rupees to Stephen's phone number, this, from your bank, then the banks know that this is authenticated, I have my phone So it works very seamlessly. And, if you look at the stats again, then the numbers are really skyrocketing. In fact, if you look at what, what the government has done, they have quickly moved from UPI to UPI two point zero, which was launched in two thousand eighteen, and they're now even talking about UPI three point zero, which is going to incorporate stuff like NFC, which is going to incorporate stuff like offline payments. So if you want to make small payments, it can be offline. So it is a super convenient mechanism. But what that is doing is because it is super convenient, people are just using it without thinking. It is also increasing the centralization of, you know, the payments. And every single thing you do now, over UPI is not just recorded by that payment company, but obviously that record is also available for anyone else to use and exploit. So that, that, that part is obviously not very clear to people because they go for convenience. yes, that is UPI. UPI and, you know, UPI two point zero and the evolution of UPI essentially. Gotcha.

And with UPI then, I'm curious then, does that also play into even the way people peer-to-peer trade Bitcoin? Like as an example, let's say I was an Indian and I had UPI two point o, would you and I be doing like peer-to-peer trade? And I might be like, "Oh, hey, Anant, I'm gonna give you fifty rupees on UPI two, and you pay me that amount in Sats," and that's kind of how

people used in like RoboSats or Paxful, sorry, on, Bix and others, you would see that the person is saying, okay, the payment has to be in UPI. So UPI is a very convenient mechanism, and if you are okay with it being, peer-to-peer but, not as private, then people do use it very often. And even in personal case, you might use it because it, you don't have to put in there that I have bought Sats with it, right? So using it for small amounts with You know, something which people do all the time.

I see, yeah. So, yeah, in a way, we've, we've seen that around the world. I know, I'm not in Australia anymore, but a few years ago, they came out with this thing called NPP, National Payments Platform, and that enabled all these instant payments between various banks. And in a similar way, you would have what was called a Pay ID, and that would be linked to either an email or a phone linked to your Australian bank account, and the same kind of thing you would send. And in Even for example, with BISKS, there are people doing, let's say, Zelle transfers to do Bitcoin transfers, so that's another way. So it's interesting to see the way this has all evolved as well, because in earlier years, in years gone by, in the earlier years of Bitcoin, one of the arguments used to be, "Oh, see, your bank is closed nine to five, and you have to wait three to five days for a transfer," whereas what's happened now is the fiat system has upped its game in terms of convenience. Obviously, we're still losing money in

Control is becoming worse and worse, but then it makes it a little bit more challenging from a Bitcoin advocate's point of view. Of course, you still have to make that case about, you know, no inflation and not being controlled. I'm also curious if you could add any color, any commentary for listeners on the war on cash. Is the Indian government or Indian governments, are they conducting a war on cash? What's the situation like there?

Yeah, I think that's a very interesting point, but just to go on the previous one, you're, you're very right because if you talk To people about, banks being closed and, you know, banks only working nine to five, they'll probably laugh at you. No one goes to the banks nowadays anyway, right? They either use an ATM which is open twenty-four hours so they can get cash out, or they use, you know, UPI or some other online payment mechanism to, pay each other. So the whole idea of banks being, banks only working nine to five isn't that strong. Obviously, you have to explain them that what that really means because what you really have with UPI and any Have a quote allowed limit that within this limit, if you do, like for example, ten thousand or one lakh rupees or some decent amount of limit, you are below the risk, but you can't do, you know, unlimited amount of payment and you can't take out unlimited amount of cash and stuff like that. So that-- so instead of every single transaction being approved and therefore taking time, they have given you a limit of pre-approved transaction, right? So it is essentially still the same control system. Right? But to make it convenient for small payments, they have given you like a, like a, you know, limit, white list limit that if you don't go beyond this point, you are okay to, you are okay to do it, yeah. So that's, that's how, that's how, the whole convenience piece is, developing and that is also impacting cash, right? So, so coming to the cash point, the, the use of cash has been, like I said, was very, is still very prevalent in India, but with the rise Because of, with the rise of these payment mechanisms and, the e-rupee which we haven't spoken about, which, which is going to be, much more of an attack on cash, the use of cash has gone down, right? So the use of cash as a, as a convenience piece, cash is convenient. I take it out, I give it to you, I take it out of my pocket, I give it to you, it's done, right? I don't have to use a bank account number and all that. So cash was

you know, a lot of other pe-a lot of people having their mobile phones with them all the time anyway, that convenience factor of cash has gone down. However, there are a lot of people who use cash, you know, just because they want to be more private, and, that, that scene hasn't changed. So use of cash for privacy reasons, not for convenience reasons, is still intact. In fact, I would say slightly growing, with all the, with all the, all the, all the centralization happening In the other side of the things, so that, that is slightly growing while the convenience piece and the, you know, the, you know, petty cash, cash transaction volume is definitely decreasing. So it's, it's like, it's like a subtle way.

And one other point I've seen and we are hearing about in various countries around the world is they are starting to restrict how much foreign c-currency you're allowed to hold. So in various countries, like for a long time, China has had this, I think no more than fifty thousand RMB, something like this. And- I know, for example, in Sri Lanka, you're not allowed to have more than five thousand USD, and, there are various ways that they are restricting your ability to use foreign currency because they wanna keep you holding their bags. So I'm curious, is that a similar situation happening with the Indian rupee? Like, are there, is there a sort of clamping of control in terms of how much foreign currency you can hold or what the banks there will permit you to do based on what the central bank or the government has said?

Yeah, I, I, I definitely know that there is a I don't know what limit it is. so there is definite limit of the amount of foreign currency you can hold or use while traveling, but it hasn't changed in recent times, right? So it has been the same for a while, and probably that's why I don't remember what is the exact number because when it changes, and maybe it eventually will, it will be one of those things. See, the, the real, that, that mostly happens in countries where, there are capital controls in place, right? Where we, you know, the- Government wants to avoid capital outflow, that's not really the case with India. In India, post, especially post, you know, nineteen ninety-two, you know, the rupee is, is not really fixed. So, so there is, and there is, there's obviously the, the rate of rupees compared to dollar, pounds or yen changes like any other currency, and therefore there's no real, real way for actually people to, people to, you know, for government to have capital- Controls, they don't want it, want that either. So that's not, that much applicable to India.

Gotcha. And on the e-rupee, can you tell us a little bit about this? Is this like a predecessor to the CBDC or what exactly is the e-rupee? What are the implications then for Bitcoin as well?

Yeah. So UPI and, you know, the, the, the success of it, meant that, you know, e-rupee was or CBDC probably would be, further down the line. But what As far as I understand, it's not yet live, but rupee is in pilot. It's basically something which is like a prepaid voucher. So you get a prepaid voucher, and it is a purpose and services dependent voucher. So what that means is that you might get that voucher, and you may be only able to use for, you know, for taking a vaccine. You might not be able to use it for anything else. So with this whole infrastructure around wallets that has been, wallets and the communication between wallets and the UPI messaging that has developed, putting in, putting in a prepaid purpose-built purpose, purpose-specific voucher, which is e-rupee, isn't a big deal. So you get a QR code or an SMS, which is essentially your prepaid card or prepaid, you know, voucher, but when you- You go to avail it, it can only be availed by certain services, right? So government might use it for subsidizing stuff, they might use it for, you know, encouraging you to spend in, in a very specific way. So it is, you know, it is that kind of, control that it le- lets the government have.

Yeah, gotcha. And as I understand, this is sort of reminding me of a system in the US, I believe it's called EBT, Electronic Benefit Transfer, and it's basically, it's, it's kind-- it's a type specific stores. And so it sort of reminds me a bit like that, and we can see obviously the parallels and what's going on in terms of the implication for freedom, right? Because if they're going to start putting money out or types of money that can only be spent in certain ways, it almost becomes like this, very controlled economy. It's this, like this kind of very specific gift voucher, if you will, as opposed to broad speaking money.

Yeah, this has been a nightmare forever, right? If CBDCs come in, this is like a- Teaser for CBDCs, right? So if CBDCs come in, it means that it can have a granular level of control, at a spending level. So you, it is like a pre-programmed piece where you can-- It's not like after spending, if you have done something, the government will come and, you know, catch hold of you. But if you, if, if the vouch-- if, if the voucher means that you can only spend, at a certain place, and if you try to spend it somewhere else, it simply won't work.

In a future where all of the money can get converted into rupee, right? Or some form of it. So what that would mean is that, okay, you can only spend, five percent of your salary in luxury goods. You have to spend, fifty percent of your salary over here, twenty percent of it here. So, so that, that becomes very restrictive. And if your, if your life's worth or if your value or the stuff that you do on a daily basis is so much control, then I don't know what else This is left to control, right? So that's, that's very scary, and that is another-- and that, that's, that's going at such a pace, Stephan, that, you know, things are, the, the way we talk about it, you know, in generally in the world, in Europe and otherwise, things are going to play out much faster in India. Yeah. Not just because of these technological improvements, but also because actually people want it. It's not that the government is forcing it, right? So it is, it is convenient and, you know, the way it is being, done over the last few years, people actually want it. So the, so the, there will be no so-- very little social resistance, and there will be, the infrastructure will be in place for it, so it can, it can get very scary very quickly.

Yeah, I agree with you, that's very scary, and I think a lot of obviously Bitcoiners are very aware of this threat and obviously are trying to help those people who unable to see the problem to use Bitcoin as the alternative, right? Bitcoin and Lightning should, you know, it can replace this kind of peer-to-peer spending and cash that, is rapidly disappearing. And so perhaps that's part of the messaging, maybe that's part of the way it can be spoken about and, and the way that there could be talks about it at Bitcoin meetups and things like this. I'm curious in terms of when you talk to, you know, let's say other Indian people you know, what's been In their response to this kind of thing, do they just think, "Oh, the e-rupee is coming and it's gonna be a good thing"? Is that what they would say?

Yeah, that's, that's a general, that's a general perspective, yes. They think that it should be, it will be very convenient and, you know, it, it's not going to have any negative repercussions. so there are very few people who understand the importance of privacy, and, if you, if you try to kind of join the dots with,

Banned in India, so that's a huge thing, you, you can't use VPNs if you really think about it, everything is out there in the open, and whatever you do, either on internet or through payment networks, if it's completely open and if someone can, you know, dig the big data and find out about you, they essentially know everything about you, not just they know, they can put controls in place for you, right? So without having to send, send, you know, physically send someone to you, they can just simply- Simply by a click of few buttons, they can just simply enforce stuff on you. So it is, it is very interesting but very, it can get very scary.

Yeah, and I say for some of this, it is a future risk, and so that's why a lot of people will not see this until it actually happens to them. And let's say even if somebody has spent all this time building up a business or maybe buying a property, and then they go to sell that property, what are they gonna sell it for? Oh, e rupees. And then once that money's in the Could even make it expire, right? So some people, if you look at, you know, the BIS and some of these other organizations, they might see that as a good thing, right? They say, "Oh, well, look, we're gonna have more monetary control over people, or we can try to enforce certain economic experiments or force people to spend that money rather than hold it." And so these are some of the things that could be coming down the line, so in some ways, it's about building out this Bitcoin ecosystem so that we have Lightning for the day-to-day stuff and Obviously, cold storage for people's life savings and where they might be using more advanced techniques like multi-signature, signature and things like this. So, let's chat a little bit about what you're building. I know you're over at BitHive and, you've got Hexa Wallet and now recently you put out Keeper as well. So, what's Keeper?

Right. So, so I, I guess by the time, this episode goes out, Keeper would be live, it would be live in an alpha, public alpha, public alpha. I want to, you know, build it in the open, you know, build in public so that, you know, the quality of the product and the market fit is really top-notch, right? So that's, you know, please go ahead and download it and, try it out first thing and help us develop it. Now, what is Keeper? Keeper essentially is a vault, which is, which is, which is either air-gapped or multisig or both, depending on the type of signing devices you use, and it is meant for holding your bitcoins Over the long run, right? So, the vault, which is the central piece of Keeper, helps you, helps you secure Bitcoin into this multisig piece, which can be, which can be either two of three or three of five and maybe, you know, certain other combinations in the future. And the key part of it is none of these keys are, you know, generators stored in the app. They are used, you know, signing devices like your hardware wallet. Wallets or even external, you know, software-based signing devices can be used for that multisig, right? So the real value of multisig is when it is multi-platform. It's not like a single platform, it's not like only the, you know, five keeper apps doing a three-of-five multisig, but it is, valuable really when it is multi-platform and multi-device and multi-location, right? So that is essentially the central piece of Keeper, the vault, which is, Which is based on multisig and, you know, in the future when we have music and music two, that will also come in. Beyond this central piece, now if someone wants to realize the job of keeper is to secure your Bitcoin for the long run, then there needs to be complementary pieces to it. It, the vault itself isn't enough, right? for example, we, Keeper has, BIP85 hot wallets. So what that means is you can have one or many hot wallets that you are, you know, using it on a, on a regular basis, which, which are hot basically, which means the keys are on the phone. and because they are BIP85 based, you just need to backup one seed if you want to. And then, the key part of it is that, whenever the threshold of, sat in your hot wallets crosses a certain limit, which you have set- Certain, then there is an auto transfer that is initiated to the wallet. So what it means, ideologically, speaking is that, you know, use your daily spend, use your, use hot wallets for your regular spends and small amounts, but as soon as it goes beyond a certain point, put it in the cold storage, right? So that's one complementary, feature. The other is around inheritance, obviously. So if money is there in the wallet and you-- if Bitcoin is generational wealth, then you would want to- To securely pass it on to the next generations. So that's another linked piece that, that works with the vault.

Back to the show in a moment. Now, those people who have trusted an exchange to hold their Bitcoin exposes them to risks such as exchange hacks, compromised passwords, or funds being frozen. So as always in the space, not your keys, not your coins. And Unchained Capital can help you take command and take ownership of your own Bitcoin. They can help you create a multi-signature vault where you hold two keys. In different locations, and Unchained hold the third key, they can help you, and they can use that third key to help you as v-- as part of various operations. Unchained also offers Bitcoin native financial services, so they do things like potentially offer a loan against your Bitcoin, and they also offer a trading desk in various states around the US. So if you're interested in the various range of products that Unchained have, you can find all of that over at unchained dot com. Are you still using a plain old block explorer? Bitcoin has grown beyond a single layer It's now a fully fledged multi-layer ecosystem. Mempool dot space is a comprehensive Bitcoin explorer covering this ecosystem from the mempool to the blockchain to second layer networks like Liquid or the Lightning Network. Now, with mempool dot space, you can target the fee for your Bitcoin transactions, you can view transactions to see whether they have confirmed or not, you can host it yourself so that you don't have to trust a third party, and if you are with an enterprise, mempool dot space offers custom mempool instances with your company's branding. Branding with increased API limits and more. Go find out more at mempool dot space slash enterprise. And now back to the show. Gotcha. Okay. So, yeah, we've gone through a lot, so just to make sure everyone's following along. So, the Keeper is, an application on your phone as an example, but you're saying, you mentioned you want this to be multi-platform, so as an example, I presume you'll have it as a desktop application also or a laptop application also if you want it to be. And then the idea is we can create multi-signature

Keys in different locations, and Keeper is like, we can think of that like the transaction coordinating piece across all of this, and it will then also build that multi-signature, and there's this feature, or it's known as registering the multi-signature quorum. So as an example, when you create a multi-signature, you also export a file out into, let's say, your cold card as an example, or whichever other hardware device, and it then knows the public keys of the other signing devices, and then it can jointly- Create and operate this multi-signature wallet, and this could be in the context of a business, it could be in the context of your personal storage that you wanna keep it highly secure, so that's why you're using multi-signature. So have I summarized that correctly so far?

Yes, yes, you've summarized it very well. In fact, you've touched upon a very important, challenge that multi-sig has, and that is, that is what, you know, that is what, this registration of your wallet really does, so that, you know,

Where, the coordinator app can change your xpubs. So how do you ensure that these xpubs are the xpubs that, you know, you want to, and want to make sure that, your sats are in? So that is where, this, this whole process comes in. You, you create the wallet using, you know, xpub from different devices, and these devices don't run the same OS, so they're multiple platforms. For example, one is Coldcard and one is Ledger and one is completely something else. So that's the When you have created that xPub, the coordinator app can easily lie to you. So if the coordinator app wants, they can say, "Yep, I have created the multisig and, this is, this is your, your, this is your vault. Go ahead, use it." But your real keys and the real verification can only and should only happen with the, with the signing devices, because that is where the private keys are, and because there are multiple, one might cheat, but the other might not. So, so what? Registration helps you do, there's a, there is a step before registration as well, but what the registration steps helps you do is the coordinator app tells, the signing device that this is the vault I have created for you. Why don't you register it? And next time when I bring a PSBT to you, make sure that it, that it, complies with this particular registered multisig, right? So if, if the coordinator app, wants to cheat and, for a PSBT it replace This is the xPub and therefore the change address, the hardware wallet, or the signing device will go, nope, this isn't the, you know, multisig that I-- that has been registered with me. So it will simply not sign the transaction. So that is where the registration step helps.

Yeah. Okay. So, there were a few other terms in there, so let's just explain just for anyone of you who's relatively new. When you, do these multi-signature transactions, as a standard, it's known as PSBT, Partially Signed Bitcoin Transaction Which, setup or transactions, and you might have this part-signed piece that you're passing along from one to another. So after the first signature, now it's got one out of, you know, three signatures required for spending, then you get to the next hardware wallet, and so on and so forth. And then the other feature you mentioned as well is that xPub, right? So the master public key, you can think of that like a master viewing key of all the, for that particular signing device, right? And so then the idea is that, pick Because the devices are registering the quorum and understanding who else is in that set, the cosigners, correct? and then when it's-- when it goes to spend, it knows that the change that you are spending is coming back into that wallet, as an example, because that was historically a vulnerability. Now a lot of the ecosystem has improved and gotten better since those days, but there were bugs found, as an example, where, you know, a hardware device would sign a transaction and think the change, you know, or it didn't have a change check, and then the change Would just go to somebody else, right? Or that could be the hacker, the malicious person, etcetera. So could you just outline in terms of, hardware support, what devices are you supporting here with Keeper, and what's the main way? Like, is it NFC? Is it micro SD card? Is it, you know, USB plugging? What, what are the main ways that we're interfacing here?

Absolutely. So when, when it, gets out, you know, this week, essentially it will have support for Coldcard Ledger and Tapd Devices, all the other, other hardware wallets, Trezor, SeedSigner, BitBox, Keystone, everything, CobuVault, all of them, because a Jade Vault, because, you know, everyone, first of all, all these signing devices are slightly different. Some are, you know, fully verifying like, a cold card, while some are, like a blind signer, like a TapSigner. So there is a, when you are configuring a Vault, it depends on your personal needs What kind of security guarantees you want and what kind of, what kind of convenience you want. So these signing devices don't just offer you a very standard way of signing, but they do offer you a slightly different trade-off between security and convenience, right? And even the cost is a factor. Some, some devices are costlier than the other. So our aim is to be able to support all the signing devices, all the hardware wallets, and even, you know, have some software-based signing devices, maybe like another one Wallet or maybe another Keeper app, that kind of stuff. even there is one more signing device which is called a signing server. So you can have like a, a signing server, where it signs one of the keys can be with the signing server and it signs only when you give it, you know, two FA code or some kind of an, some kind of verification. So this gives you a really good list of signing devices which you can configure the way you want. so that's about the support. How we are communicating because, because Keeper is, mobile first, and most of the people honestly are going to use, mobile for, you know, most of their things, right? Not just in India, many countries. So, so most of the communication, starts off with, interacting with the hardware wallet either through NFC or Bluetooth or QR code. We do have plans to support wired, wired, you know, wired may way of communication as well, but the way, the Keeper app encourages And the way the backlog is structured, we are focusing first on the ones where you don't need an intermediate step, you don't really need a computer in between. So that's, that's how the, you know, communication with different sign-- and honestly, all the signing devices now support, a way of, you know, communicating with your app directly, most of them, if not all. So we have leapfrogged that step and we are focusing directly on NFCs and Bluetooth and QR codes.

I see. Yeah. So to summarize then, we've got NFC support New thing that I think, is interesting to see, right? I know, CoinKite with the cold card and the TapSigner are really trying to push forward NFC support, so that's cool to see. you have the QR code, which is also another air-gapped way, and a lot of the, there are various h-hardware devices that support that kind of thing, right? Like SeedSigner or, Keystone or, Specter DIY. So that'll be interesting to see that also, and then, yeah, In terms of the target market for this application, are we talking here about advanced users, intermediate users? Who's the, who's the target for this, who's the user for this kind of application?

Absolutely. So one thing we are clear about is that, the Hexa, Hexa, the way Hexa was built and the market fit for, for Hexa is more around, you know, newcomers who might have like fifty dollars on their wallet and, they want to, you know, just experiment with Bitcoin, learn about it. Maybe they have downloaded Hexa because they, you know, got a gift link or an FNF link from a friends and family, and this is their first wallet. Keeper isn't going to be the first wallet for most people, right? Keeper is a wallet where, where the user has, certain amount of Bitcoin and they are, serious towards making sure that, that, their Bitcoin is secure for the longer term. So from a convenience point of view, Vault is obviously not as convenient to use as, as an account in Exa Wallet, right? And that is the, intended trade-off, that multisig gives you and, what Keeper takes. So Keeper is more for-- Coming back to your specific question, Keeper is more for people who are serious about the Bitcoin and who, who want to, you know, store it for the long run.

Yeah. And one other question I'm sure listeners will be interested in, in terms of the server or the backend, are people able to So a common concern is around privacy and also being the one doing your own validation, your own verification. so is there a feature to, let's say, connect with your own Bitcoin Core node, either potentially over RPC or Tor, or to connect to your own Electrum server, so the likes of Electrum, Resserver, Electrum X or Fulcrum? what's the, thinking there?

Yeah, see, one of the clear things, you know, if you see the tagline, it says "Your private Bitcoin wallet." So the private part is, is where With your Bitcoin as much as possible. So that includes stuff like you don't have to register with us, you don't have to provide an email address, there's no registration needed, so you can keep your data to yourself. yes, you can connect your own node. we have, we already had this feature in Exa, it should, it will also be there in Keeper. So you should be able to connect your own node. There's no reason as a coordinator app that we need to be running the node, so you should be able to run your, your own node. And Even the alpha version, you should be able to connect, via Tor. So, you know, the priv-privacy preserving part, we have taken it very seriously.

Yeah, that's great to hear. See, and, as you mentioned, this wallet is more for the advanced users anyway, so chances are they're more likely or capable to be able to run their own infrastructure, whether that's their own Bitcoin Core or their own Electrum server. And nowadays, it's a lot easier, especially with these packages like Raspberry Pi and so on, that, make They can have an easy connect your wallet dialog or interface there, so that's cool to see.

So, I still think there's, there's one thing I would like to go back to,

yeah, sure,

because, the story isn't complete without that. So when we spoke about, registration of wallets, registration of multisig wallets of wallet with, hardware signers and the challenges around there, one thing I want to make it clear is that we understand, and, we are building towards it that simply registering what- Particular wallet with a signing server might not be enough. Okay, let me explain that. What could happen is that a coordinator app might actually even fake the registration process. So when you're registering with Coldcard, it might give the Coldcard its own xPub, but the other two xPub or the other four xPub it might change, right? Always possible. So, it-- so making sure that the registration is successful is also a very key component of making sure that It is, you know, as secure as possible. So that is why, what we want to encourage people when they're using Keeper is, is basically not just completely depend on one signing device which is fully verifying and the Keeper app, but do test transactions, check for the wallet configuration or the multisig configuration, not just on your cold card, maybe another wallet, another signing device, so that you can see that the five xPub that Keeper is communicating Those are exactly five, you know, at least right across the two different, signing devices. So what that would mean is you're not trusting a single source, otherwise it is very easy for the coordinating app even to fake the registration, right? So we are trying, we are building those, you know, messaging and--

Yeah, that's a good point. That's a very good point.

So we're, we're trying to build that, we understand that, we are trying to build that, build that, you know, build that encouragement for the user Inside the wallet, we are providing them there with any, with all the information that what is a fully, fully verifying, verifying signing wallet, what is a partially verifying signing wallet, what is a blind signing wallet, and what is a hot, signing, sorry, signing device, right? So there are different types of signing devices, and depending on, like I said, if you really are storing millions, it is worth that you use most of your devices as, you know, fully verifying signing devices so that you don't have to trust either a signing device or The coordinator app. So there are different attack vectors, the change address, like we discussed, is one, but even the, you know, there are other steps which, we are aware of and we are building towards. So I just wanted to complete that story, otherwise, yeah, if someone listens to only that part, they'll say, "Oh, by the way, the registration can be faked. So why didn't you talk about that?" So this is really the full picture.

Yeah, right. And, and in fairness, I know some of the guides, even

Contribute a little bit on that, but as part of that guide, it also talks about verifying, various aspects that you would check. Let's say, when you are registering the quorum, you might be checking what is, what are the other xpubs in this quorum. So for example, on the cold card, you can read those other xpub, you can see those other xpubs, and you can compare those. And let's say you're doing the Keystone as another device, on the Keystone, you can see, oh, what are the other xpubs Validate the receive address. So as an example, in the cold card, there's a little m-menu, menu. You can go in there and see on the device, okay, it's going to this address X Y Z, whatever. And you could also check that on another ad- on another device, so let's say on the keystone or some other device, where you're checking, yes, this receive address is correctly what the device is saying. That's another way you can help stop this kind of, error, because that's also one of the ways people They've given the correct address, but actually, you know, and so they're about to give this address to somebody else to receive some coins into it, and this could be a large transaction, and unfortunately, if the hacker or the attacker has somehow switched that address at some point in the process, this user, completely unbeknownst to them, is giving the wrong address to somebody else to pay them, and so that's another, you know, vector for attack. Yeah. And you can't, you can't, the received

address, you can't even like, so if you're looking Device, hardware signing, device, you, they might, you might see the same address, but what if it is switched before that, right?

Right. So that is, that is why-- So that's why you want to get that right at the, at the setup point, yeah?

Absolutely. setup point, in fact, there's one advanced step you can do if you're really, really serious is you use the same set of keys to create a, you know, a multisig on another platform, on another coordinating app, right? For example, a Spector or a Spar Receiving addresses that you can see, you can see a list of change addresses. If you see the same list across, then you know that definitely these two coordinating apps aren't really, you know, you know, cheating you the same way. There's

some, there's an or, there's a problem with one of them, right? So you would check that or you would make sure that it's using the same, or it could be some innocent error like it's using some different derivation path, but you'd, you'd still wanna check that, right? Yes. So, yeah So, you know, be wary with what you're doing, but, you know, every wallet has to go through that process where it's, it's new at some point. Every wallet was new at some point. It just happens that, you know, some wallets like Electrum were new in two thousand and eleven, and others like Keeper are new in twenty twenty-two. So, takes time. so one other topic we need to hit is Bitcoin for India. So, this is a project I've seen, it's a community project and an effort, and we've got this

So like I said, Bitcoin for India was this platform, is just a, is just a Twitter link and a, and a meetup page where people come and list their meetups, and a bunch of people who know each other, right? So it's just a, that's how it started. And the meetups were, you know, so well received and people loved them so much that, You know, a lot of, a lot of suggestions came in is why don't we do a, like, a mega meetup, like a mini conference, right? And that is where the whole concept of conference was, you know, grew. And, it wasn't as simple as we initially thought, but, the credit shouldn't really go to me, but there are a lot of volunteers who actually worked on it and made, the conference possible, you have interacted with most of them. I wouldn't r- like to call

Some of them. So it wouldn't be fair for me to, you know, take some names and not take other names. But, but one thing I want to repeat is, it's like, like, you know, the trade shouldn't go to me, but more for the volunteers. This conference is in Goa on the fifth and sixth of November, which is in probably two weeks' time, and when this episode goes out, maybe in a week's time, and, we are anticipating somewhere between two hundred and five hundred people, in that conference. So, To Bitcoin only in India. When we did some of the first few meetups, actually people from different parts of India traveled because there were no Bitcoin only meetups in their part of the, part of the country. So, so the same thing is happening here. People from all across India and outside as well are traveling in to attend this conference. We are going to have two amazing days, there are two pa-parallel tracks, like typically it is. One is a technical track and one is a non-technical track And, the schedule is out there, a lot of information, people who are speaking, including yourself, are listed on the website. So, so yeah, we are very excited about it and, it will be live streamed, with Bitcoin Magazine. So most of the people who aren't able to attend it should be able to, to see and should be able to, you know, you know, have, conversation with, Indian Bitcoiners when we go there. One of the, one of the aims of our, Of, of people who are doing this is to be able to meet other Bitcoiners, right? Because, sometimes what hap- what happens is when you are into Bitcoin, you find yourself alone. You think, you know, you are the crazy one, and there's no one in the town who, understands Bitcoin, and suddenly you go to a meetup and you find ten other people talking crazy shit like you are, you feel, you feel much better. So that's what the conference will do to many Bitcoiners in India, they, it will basically tell them that, One, there are a lot out like you who think, you know, very, although, you know, that in Bitcoin there's no single thought, people have very differing opinions, but at least, there's common ground when it comes to Bitcoin and its importance and its impact on the world. So probably, yeah, expecting a lot, of good things coming out of that meetup, the, the conference.

Yeah, and I look, I think it's a good thing to see the Bitcoin only group and scene meetup growing over time. This is the first one in India, and I'm sure it's, it's just the start of something much bigger. So what you might find is that the first attendees of this first one, they go on to either start up their own meetup groups in their own cities, and then you come back around in next year, and two years time Now, by the time you get to that stage, it's gonna be so much larger. And so I think it's partly laying down that groundwork to get people connected and get them to know each other and sort of understand, "Oh, hey, here's, here's a guy from that city, and here's a person from that city." And also just to sort of plant down the flag of Bitcoin only in the country. So I, I'm, I'm excited for this. so people, make sure you check it out. The website is conference dot bitcoin for, bitcoin for the number, So yeah, I'm looking forward to that. And I guess just as a final question, Anant, if you could change how Indians think about Bitcoin, what one thing-- if you could tell them one thing, what would you tell them?

I think don't trust verify is very important, when it comes to Bitcoin. People have started trusting institutions and, it's on that, slippery slope where you trust someone good enough for long enough so that it is good for you, but then suddenly a line is- Is crossed and, it's, it's not, not really what you had initially thought of. So people in their daily life and, you know, in, in the right race they are in, and especially in countries like India, where people work really hard, they have to work really hard, right? They don't really stop, think, and try to trust and verify things for themselves, right? So being able to think for your own and trying to really think about, okay, what, what this UPI means, what, are there any implications of that? What are, what, what are some of the other people saying? What, what does Bitcoin really offer? So stopping thinking and, you know, thinking for yourself and verifying instead of just listening to, you know, news headlines is one thing I would encourage, all Indians to do a little more of, essentially.

Fantastic. Well, thanks for joining me today and, yeah, listeners, check it out. All the links will be in the show notes. Anant, maybe what's the one best spot for people to find you?

So I'm on Twitter, not- Not super active, but I'm there, Anant underscore tap, so that's A N A N T underscore T A P, and the link will be in the show notes. Keeper is the new app, again, the link will be in the show notes. And, yeah, looking forward for a lot of you to, you know, be at the conference or connect, through the platform and, on the product side, try out the Keeper app.

Fantastic, thank you. Bye.

Okay, cheers, Stephan.

Get the show notes at stephanlivera.com/429. Thanks for listening, and I'll see you in the citadels.