TFTC: A Bitcoin Podcast - #288: Bringing a design focus to Bitcoin with Patricia

Episode Date: November 29, 2021

Join Marty as he sits down with Patricia, a designer focused on bringing better experiences to Bitcoin, to discuss: - Designing in an open source environment - How bad design can turn people away - Observing how users interact in ways one doesn't expect - How to gather feedback on open source software design - A call to action for new designers - Bitcoin provides a wide open slate to bring design innovation to market - Skating - much more Follow Patricia on Twitter Check out the Bitcoin Design Guide Join the Design Slack Shoutout to our sponsors: Cash App Unchained Capital Braiins - Daniel's thread Compass Mining

what is up freaks it's your boy marty bent here to introduce this episode of tales from the crypt went off the beaten path talking about design in the bitcoin world ux ui design why it's important how you can create better experiences why those better experiences are important for people using bitcoin and the people working on them i sat down with patricia he's working on btc pay server bitcoin design guide she's got a grant from hrf to focus on bitcoin design we just shot the shit it was a good time this rip is brought to you by our good friends at cash app excuse me the motherfucking cash app cash app is making it easy to stack sats uh you can stack sats send sats receive sats sell sats if you so please you can dca into sats you

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your ASIC set up, telling you how you need to set up your electrical infrastructure to actually plug the ace again how to connect to the ip and point it to a pool uh and and any other questions you may have i know a lot of you are uh worried about the south carolina facility spoke to wit uh over the weekend they are almost done uh they have one more delay due to transformer supply chain issues at the south carolina facility they've made it through a lion's share of the people who were delayed there and they're hoping to have everybody online in the next few weeks here uh and they're hoping to mitigate that problem in 2022 with some more redundancy in terms of hosting uh i think they're learning a lesson here of scaling and uh over promising uh in terms of hosting stuff

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where you can go check out a bunch of stats on mining profitability mining cost to mine uh pool stats individual asic stats uh profitability at the individual asic level a bunch of other cool things there let's go check right now let's see what the insights i-n-s-i-g-h-t-s dot b-r-a-i-n-s dot c-o-m just want to check out it's always cool to see brains os plus um an ant miner s9 been around for quite a while uh running brains os plus is profitable break even electricity price is 15 cents a kilowatt hour mining is still very profitable right now i guess that's what that says um so go check all this out brains b-r-a-i-i-n-s.com and enjoy this episode with patricia

you've had a dynamic where money's become freer than free if you talk about a fed just gone nuts all all the central banks going nuts so it's all acting like safe haven i believe that in a world where central bankers are tripping over themselves to devalue their currency bitcoin wins in the world of fiat currencies bitcoin is the victor i mean that's part of the bull case for bitcoin if you're not paying attention you probably should be what is up freaks i'm sitting down with ben the carman's wife ben trisha ben trisha how you doing it's actually a different ben's wife it's a different ben's wife although there was drama about that at the wedding i completely missed the wedding i know you missed the way you missed the

divorce you missed the wedding but we can always do to get in Miami next year which Ben was it it was Ben Kaufman ah Ben Kaufman yeah there was drama you cannot there's some there's some ground rules to getting married to a Ben in Miami you can't marry one and then like swim with another and then like go off at night with I mean the whole thing was at night anyway there was a lot of drama the Ben's are very jealous but that's that's one of their best qualities they're very odd bunch in the best way the most endearing way possible bens out there who may be listening uh very uh very talented bunch too yes we've got a lot of them working on uh very interesting parts of the bitcoin stack um you the ben that we have in front of us today one of the older bens one of

the older bens uh like i was saying before we hit record i'm very excited for this uh conversation because I'm a bit of like a design nerd if you will not where I want to call myself a designer but I've had experience uh jumping into a design boot camp to learn more about tech after I quit my job in the financial world and like I was saying before we hit record it was extremely illuminating to me because not until I did that and immersed myself in that sort of class setting and focus like hey you're going to learn about design particularly designing for digital space is, did I realize how important design is and how hard it is to design good experiences? And for the context of this conversation, I can't imagine how hard it is

to design for Bitcoin, which is a free open source software, very highly technical. You're dealing with private public key pairs and a bunch of other variables. And so to me, having that design background. Bitcoin's always seemed like a crazy opportunity for designers to design a whole new financial system. Obviously, that's like the go-to trip. Like there's a shit ton that needs to get done. So it's like a wide open canvas.

Is that true? I hope so. I think so. I think there are definitely parameters. There's some principles, right? You want to take the things you learn in these boot camps or in school or just picking it up on the internet, playing around.

You want to keep some of those classic principles, I think, in my own practice. But that is sort of the most exciting part, I think. I don't know. Maybe I'm just preferential to design. But I think that's almost why design is more exciting than programming for me. Because there are these opportunities. And because you can kind of figure it out with other people, what you wanted to look and feel like, what other people could jump in. I think there's consensus in design, too, which is something I think we're still figuring out on the Bitcoin side.

where's the consensus in the type typeface right now like there seems to be consensus around all the fonts and oh yeah type design is huge i think it's been kind of like slept on for years i can't wait to see more drama more more heated discussions about it i'm here for it let's go well how'd you guys take it back a step back before we get on the bitcoin stuff like how do you like what's your background how'd you get into design and how do you find your way to bitcoin i found my way to Bitcoin before design um well I mean I've always loved design too and I it was something that I think I always wanted to do art and design but maybe like a lot of other people in Bitcoin who I've met who are also like immigrant parents or people in communities where they say you need

to get a safe job either in finance or nursing or something stable right you know so so like art and design was like kind of off the table for a while uh went into medicine worked at a university for a while learned about bitcoin dating someone who was uh active in silk road but yeah well you know it happened i think it's a lot of people learned about it too and that was probably one of the main use cases so um i think that people at least for myself at around that time i didn't want to use it i was like is this illegal am i doing something wrong i didn't i didn't even go on the site so didn't tell anyone for a while just kind of like an irc doing my thing as i think many people were They're just kind of like very low key.

But then years later, had a media arts practice in the dog patch in San Francisco and just started experimenting with how can like code be expressive and functional things that were like processing with Ben Fry, Casey Reese, like how to draw on the Internet, kind of like programming to be to be art. And Parsons, actually, you're a New Yorker, right? Like Parsons around 2017, they were opening up a new program in communication design. So that's how I got like a formal education and product and interaction. So like maybe around the same time we were doing boot camp slash grad school situation.

Yeah. It's funny how that works, right? It is funny how it works. and it's fascinating it's it's to me again after taking that class like just like the way i viewed everything like apps just completely changed it's like ah i think this could be a much better experience you never think of it and so that's what i want to get out of this conversation like until you're immersed in like the design um learning about design like you don't really think about much maybe you know like an app has like a shitty experience or something like that

but you don't really think why it's because these people don't design good processes and that's another thing we were talking about before we hit record like one of my favorite examples of bad design that is pretty infamous in user design user experience excuse me user interface user experience circles is like a picture of a park where you have a pathway a concrete pathway that was constructed and it's very rigid and you make like a right right angle turn and that's like what the designer designed and implemented but when you actually get the actual user experience you'll just see people walking through the grass and there's just like a path the natural path through the grass of people actually interacting with the physical space in a way that they want to

and that the designer didn't think of when you go apply that to like the digital space like where what you have to think of is like where are we designing digital experiences where a designer is doing it not really understanding how users want to and are eventually going to use their application or software whatever it may be yeah 100% and I'm curious you brought up a few things that we didn't actually talk about this specific part beforehand but you brought up apps and I think that's a pretty interesting like way to get your foundation and start with designing in digital spaces but I also wonder with Bitcoin specifically to me I feel like I designed apps and I was learning this sort of skill set but in terms of like Bitcoin I think

it just the apps are very valuable learning the user experience is very valuable but also focusing on like the beautiful qualities that internet is sometimes lost when you're so focused on like okay well we're supposed to fit it in within these dimensions like i think maybe there's a balance to it maybe we can take like some of these things from like improving on user experience on the apps but also like focusing on like what's beautiful about bitcoin and these qualities that haven't existed before with apps that that are emerging that maybe we're missing if we're if we're too structured you know what i'm saying i know exactly what you're saying we're we're dealing with bitcoin which is again deals with private public key pairs it's very interactive

if you're using it correctly right like compare that to like bank of america app where you just need face id it's a little scary right yeah to to get into your bank account and you can transfer money and you're not really doing anything interact you're personally not interacting with like the fed wire transfer or whatever rails bank of america is using but if you're using bitcoin like if i have a blue wallet um and i'm using their own chain wallet and i have the private public key pairs like i am interacting with my private key every time i i send a transaction there which is a different a different type of interaction that has to be designed around yeah yeah and designed and i think like people don't always understand that design too it's like

you know the whole buying a cup of coffee example but it's like people might understand the fees at a particular time can be like way more expensive than like the coffee itself so helping people understand bitcoin at the same time as like changing these apps and and not changing them to make them worse like hopefully improving them so these really incredible qualities like privacy and security are still preserved so that way we still can tell people like this is the freest form of money you have but but do in a slick way where it's so natural and they don't even have to think about it that's like my fantasy is like my fantasy is like when people just can like open open whatever it is their app of choice their wallet of choice and it just feels natural it

feels good and there's like this this almost like poetic quality where it just it's something that people shouldn't have to feel like they like I feel right now people have to do so much work with bitcoin and they almost feel like for me I don't feel like I even deserve some of these like things I feel like for so long we've been like done dirty by tech that it's like it feels weird and wrong to have something that just works that is supposed to work really well so my like fantasy is like people have really great security really great privacy and it's easy it's such effortless i don't know how do we get there marty i don't know well that's what that's the question i was just about to ask is can we get there a lot of the times you'll hear like it's

impossible to create that due to the nature of private public key pairs and like how interactive you have to be like people are going to have to stomach quote-unquote shitty experiences if they want to use it the right way why do we tolerate that no i don't see me personally like i i agree with you i i wish we could have this grand vision where it was just uh very seamless um i do see that particular i don't even call it a criticism i guess with the person or type of people that would say what i just uttered i guess they're um coming from the perspective of these are the design restraints we've been giving and something we just have the stomach like people are going to have to develop new ways of interacting with their their digital life in particular their

money in the digital world um that is going to be more involved uh and not like interacting with the memo or cash yet but I feel like there's a balance don't you I do I interrupted you a little bit I'm sorry but I was like so I I feel that where it's like they may have a point though You know, I think it will take a lot more effort. But I think that there's a balance. I think we can still have a lot of these apps. And I know, like, KYC is not great, but I don't think Cash App is bad if people choose to use it. That's a step in the right direction.

And I hope that, you know, people can appreciate that there is not— and not everyone can understand Bitcoin after doing it for, like, seven years or five years. Like, some people, they haven't even heard about it yet. Like, they might need that little extra step. I know it's not, like, the goal. If you read the white paper, it's obviously not the goal, but I can applaud those companies for trying to step in. I don't think it's easy for them policy-wise to have to deal with SEC.

I don't want that. I don't envy that. That's the other thing is as Bitcoiners, you have to find resolve. Bitcoin's an open source system. These people want to use it. These companies want to use it. Cash App wants to use it. They can use it and leverage it. And what you have to do is out-compete with the open source technologies to create better experiences that people want to use, right?

Yeah, and maybe there's a world in which those products sort of meet. I feel like, to me, the most custodial options that I appreciate are the ones who also are interacting with open source projects. Like maybe Cashout isn't specifically, but Square, like Square Crypto is amazing. They've done so much for designers. I think more than anyone else supported projects and the Slack has like 2000 people now it's popping off. It's fun. Like I can appreciate that.

Like not saying people should jump to custodial solution, but I do feel like before, if you're not ready to be like, okay, well like let's hop into Breeze. Like that's not everyone's first introduction. And I think that's okay. But like maybe, maybe we get there where we have these like really great free and open source wallets that are, that are slick and easy, but we're not there yet. No, no, we're not. i think we'll get there but i think all right so let's do this let's zoom out and from your

your perspective what uh does a designer whether it be ux ui um what in your opinion like what is the spectrum of variables that are needed to be taken into consideration when you approach bitcoin specifically like what obviously you have a private public keys you got different address structures uh you mentioned fees uh protocol versus lightning like what are you thinking and how are you explaining the design spectrum to newcomers i think the cool part now is we have the design guide we have bitcoin.design is is part of documentation i think the past year that's come about that hasn't existed previously so i can kind of just drop them some links i hate to be the person who's like pushing anything on anyone to be like here's

where you need to start but kind of like an invitation like here's some good places to start and then check back in with them a couple weeks and be like so what do you think like um i was even just talking to cars i think audio and even just having this context too is something that we should document for other people too and be like here's what we think are best practices here's what you could do i think everything happening on lightning super interesting the icon set is really great just got released today or like iterated upon today with bosh and christoph so great i'm working on a merchant section hopefully with btc pay and um and it's just been so it's so fun like just hearing everyone's experiences and a lot of it is pain points

honestly it's like a little sad sometimes but uh i think the merchant experience to me personally is so fascinating and i hope that communities outside of the west specifically are like taking advantage because i think it's going to be something where everyone has a different community need and use case so i don't know if that totally answers your question but like that's my preference i think that if i could focus on one thing in my short lifetime like just improving the merchant section and like making that really rich and available to a lot of languages hopefully by next year in the same way that btc pay has like 29 languages and so hrf just gave you human rights foundation just gave grant to go work on this specific merchant uh onboarding use case design what in your view

historically has been the problem for merchants i mean obviously merchant adoption's been a meme since like 2013. right yeah um and many people blame price volatility for merchants not adopting it lack of education and then uh it's too hard like downloading like btc pay server or even an open node or even for some people like coinbase merchant technologies whatever they call it these days it's just too much of a hurdle for a lot of these people it's a hurdle i think and but i also think it's it's very um specific to who you're asking and who you're interviewing i would say like probably here in the u.s it just might be that it's like oh it's too hard but like we have computers and great internet and like that's not the case everywhere for some people

they just have their phones right and like you could easily start instances and interact on your phone but i think it becomes a lot more limiting when you have to wait like 38 hours for something to download like it's not it's not easy in that regard too and just resources and so i hope that when we have like way better internet in in places that are more remote or more rural potentially um i don't think it's for lack of people who don't need it and aren't curious and don't want it, I think that it just seems overwhelming to people right now. That's been my experience when I'm talking to people, when I'm interviewing people. And also, I think it's kind of on us, too, as people who are making these tools to actually

talk to them and understand their experiences. And I think that we've got to be accountable for that, too. Like, it's on people who are doing open source projects to check in. And I think that one thing Pavlonex does really well is he's been starting to get people who are building wallets open source, and we would just do design reviews for them. this is maybe like a couple months in um and see how we can improve it so i hope that when we can do that with merchants and just like go to stores like another another dream fantasy it would be like you know you just have people open source designers or developers go in and be like so what

does your coffee shop need we have like four extra hours on the weekend can we like help you or who do we need to reach out to i think it's all about like connecting them with the right people and resources yeah that's an interesting thing you brought up like you know designing for open source and having user interviews to help you create a better design? How do you do that? Almost like a decentralized studio. I've kind of mentioned this in a few things, and people think it's kind of crazy.

But I was like, wouldn't it be cool if in Austin you just had, even if it was a co-working space where people could come in for, you could say, okay, Friday afternoons we're open. We have some hardware wallets. People have sent us stuff. Come play around with them. We got some people volunteering. We may not know everything.

there may be some things that you'll teach us too as like first-time users but having it be something where it's just like open hours i don't know when you're in new york or when you're when you're in chicago doing your your uh boot camp did they bring into studios where you got to like learn from from different people different like creators and like leaders on like typography or like you know editorial like what was that like for you we never went to the studios they would come to the class though um and they'd walk us through it was a lot of testing so i was like want we did a lot of ab testing a lot of user interviews um because the way it worked when i was there uh shout out designation um we we each got like a project there was a group of like

you can broke down in the groups of three and then we had a project where we essentially found an app or some company that was looking for uh design a design upgrade and they were essentially like yeah we're doing this boot camp we'll do it for free we'll do like the testing and figure out your your design pain points or at least try to um as as amateur designers uh so that you can move forward and maybe go do a redesign or something like that so that was a lot of the focus um and then that was like the second half of the program and the first half was yes like people from studios talking about different parts of the design landscape coming in um like how do you set up these user interviews like what you you should what should you be looking for like how do you

design your questions like don't ask leading questions just try to observe and and be objective about about the answers that you're getting and then that's the other thing too they have so many different types of users taking all that information and like all right with all this information all these different tendencies from different types of people how do we push that into a final design that everybody will use yeah which is a challenge always the challenge right like who is everybody and like should everybody even use it i don't know maybe not like i think about people who inspire me like like brian harrington you know he's like going in to these places like i don't know dude like offering the conversation about bitcoin in a

really non-aggressive way just like doing the education like in the streets going i feel like that's where it needs to start right when we talk about merchants or designing for people it's like well who are you designing for start locally start with your community have good relationships with them so they can be honest with you they don't feel like they need to hold back and be like actually this is broken i'm not interested maybe in a couple years um yeah so i feel like for me it's like i don't i'm not so interested in like i don't feel like i have to have this overwhelming sense of we have to build for like the entire i think it has to start locally and small first right and like that's how you get really great quality experiences and then and then move out

right um and it's gonna look so different right in like Ghana than it's gonna look in in uh the U.S. or you know that it's gonna look in you know Ireland wherever right like everybody is gonna have different needs so I don't think it makes sense at least for me to be like you need to like build this perfect thing for everyone because it just and it's also not gonna be relevant like five years like it changes you got to keep up you got to stay relevant and listen to people exactly what you're saying listen no that's the other thing it's funny you brought that up it's gonna be like different different parts of like local bitcoins is a perfect example that where it was designed for like meet in person cash for bitcoin what you found that like people around

the world found a way to like hack it to create like a remittance tool using gift cards and i want to learn so much more about like how design could help that i feel like in a place like africa like or even the u.s like people were on bank use gift cards all the time and like why aren't we talking about that continue i totally interrupted no i mean it's like interrupting you constantly no stop you can interrupt me as much as you want and you really not are even interrupting you're adding to the conversation which is like yeah like again like just highlights again that was that was for local bitcoins i would view that as like something where they designed a sidewalk in a park and like people are just like walking off path like with the gift card stuff like how do

let that happen um as a company i think they've done a great job of it um personally uh but yeah like that's the beauty of bitcoin too like it's so raw it's so new we're still finding out every day how people interact with it and then i guess that that's a good question for you is like as somebody designing for open source software like you said things are changing rapidly like how do you not get frustrated at that or or what are the base principles from which you grow grow upon and say like all right if we just get it right at this base layer everything can naturally like grow on there is that a perspective you have on it or i mean i think that's something that takes a while to accept about open source design that's different than maybe like traditional design where

you're going into a studio or you're going into work in-house at like a large company it takes time you gotta be patient there's a lot of frustrations and i feel like just understanding it's like you can have deadlines that you expect to happen you can be frustrated that things are changing or you can just try to like enjoy it and sit back and say how can i help you and i think the communication just being really in sync with people and being like we're gonna do our weekly meetings everyone come to the meeting because you have to accept that open source is gonna have even like bitcoin core right it's not it doesn't look like the most beautiful code and and it's not because people can't code well you get all these different people who have

had jobs beforehand in other places or maybe they just learn to code by themselves and they come together to make something great and i think it's like that with with design too it's like you can't expect that you're gonna have like a release date that's gonna always i mean we have good people like pavlonex on board who like manage us and keep us together but uh open source takes time and and you have to accept that there are things that are going to change and just roll with it and have that really open attitude that I think Bitcoiners have been good about

kind of keeping with. At least folks who stay with Bitcoin and, you know, aren't selling. I think they kind of just accept that, like, things are going to change.

You just stay with it. Do the software updates. Try to educate yourself. Listen to these podcasts. Right. What do you do? Like, what do you do to keep up with the relevance?

I mean, you run a pod. Like, what do you... Oh, this helps me. The newsletter helps. But then, like, even then, like, I mentioned BlueWallet earlier. I still have a BlueWallet

with, like, a rep secret address. I'm sorry, freaks. like I haven't even like I'm just I'm I think for for me like uh if you had like a user persona that was already banned I'm a lazy I think a lot of people are I'm lazy in ways too I don't think just because you design or code or whatever like people break rules all the time they're very naughty I do a lot of naughty things I shouldn't do on these apps um but you know that's okay I think also just like not judging people too like part of it is like if you want honest answers like be

okay if people are lazy yeah i'm a lazy user uh i just like that's fine i want that's what like people like oh you're not testing this you're not testing that it's like for me for my bitcoin experience like i have things that just work and they have worked and i like that they work and it's a little dangerous but i'm reckless too in that same way and you can't test everything that's the thing i think that's why you know we have to really be grateful for people who are in these open source projects it's like they make it a point to test things because people like you and I sometimes drop the ball or like, you know, it's realistic. You have families, you have obligations.

It's like the holidays, like things come up. But like the groups of people who are really going to keep us together and like push Bitcoin forward, I think are the people who are doing this, this thing and like making making companies that are creating these projects. Like, hey, can we help you? What do you need testing with? Do you want feedback? If not, like that's OK. But if you do, we can get you a design review like Connor runs those two, which is like so good. so i would encourage anybody who's like creating wallets or or wants feedback uh reach out to the design community and they in the slack right i think either slack or there's like a calendar

that you can add to your gmail or whatever if you don't use gmail that's okay too um but you can integrate it with with some pretty standard options so that's thanks to people like christoph daniel who like are so good at making sure that we keep it together and are organized and so i'm fascinated by this too like what is the vibe in the side i like this you're really into it marty i didn't expect you to be so into like it's important like design is extremely important like you can obviously i think so but i think with bitcoin too like i wish that there was more of this like like unified presence of people who are like um programming and people who are like designing and doing it together in tandem and kind of like i feel like to me design came later

than than other things i wish like you were talking about the intentionality earlier before we like came on like making design intentional i mean i don't think people were writing like the white paper they really they really thought of it they don't think satoshi didn't have design in mind obviously so much is really you can tell that it was intentional but in terms of like the visuals interaction product like i so wish that it was like flowing in a different way which we can work on core devs don't take any offense to this but your protocol developers that really don't have any design sense, at least the ones that I've talked to and met.

Like, you have good protocol design sense, but when it comes to, like, aesthetics and user experience, I mean, the Bitcoin Core GUI, many people will yell, like, it's a perfectly fine, like, user experience. There's so much drama on that. Yeah. There's, like, two people who will, like, die on that hill that it's, like, perfect.

And you're like, maybe we could improve on a few things. Mr. Hoddle, I hear you out there. But I respect people, too, like, who have strong opinions. I'm not going to tell, like, i feel like that's such a good thing in open source it's like it's not your job to tell people they're wrong but like consider all the different opinions and like maybe i am wrong like tell me what's good about it like what am i missing maybe you see something that i don't that's like incredible well from your perspective what are like some of the most common or maybe not even

the most common but uh some of the biggest design mistakes that companies are oh yeah i get there we're um we're doing vietnamese coffee today um i think the common design mistakes are just are just oh you gotta take off the top gotta take off the top there uh cheers guys so so oh you're welcome so by the way this is try hard coffee shout out to willow burn for introducing me in austin east austin will you got to come back on the pod and you got to get back in bitcoin will i was telling you on thursday it's time well bake boy did you were you here for plebfi i'll answer the question later but like he did bake boy did you see that yeah he just got some takovas i saw him and Parker Lewis were yeah I did yeah I did so you were saying what are some of the biggest

like comment most common mistakes or hurdles was that the question yeah okay um I think for me it's like when I talk to people and I ask like okay well what do the users think of this I think there's honestly not much of a dialogue cheers between the people who are who are using their products i think some people get really excited about about finishing a project that sometimes they don't always like they're always trying to do the next release right um yeah oh thank you you don't want to top off car get in their car but yeah i think for in terms of common mistakes it's just it's honestly just learning from the users i think like of course there are principles and ux things and sometimes you're looking at like why is that an alien logo there like i don't know

if you've seen that on like breeze or like people like what's going on with that and maybe there is an intention right like there's small things where you're like why is that like typeface an option I can hardly read that but I think most commonly it's just talking to users and like listening if they give you support feedback put like implementing that how do you do that easily for somebody building an application or do you have easily there's no easy in bitcoin no I mean uh I hope that what do you have like is it something as simple as like a support page like hey we'd like your feedback to learn or um do you do like hey like if you're willing we'll give you 10 000 sats if you do a 20 minute video conference with us and just show us how you go

through your out like how do you i think people are incentivized by like bounties and like some sort of payoff but but i think it's honestly like so much work to give really good feedback because that requires users not just to talk about their experience but to really go through a whole app if you want to get like quality feedback um yeah i think making it available Well, I've noticed a lot of apps and maybe this is just because I have too many support requests that are like unsolicited and people are like, what are you doing? But but yeah, people like don't always have an area where you can email them or you do. And you get like a really boilerplate thing where they're like, thanks for reaching out and like never hear from them again. I don't think that's any specific person's problem.

I think that it's because open source requires so much time and energy and like everyone's got to keep the lights on and not everybody can support themselves with that lifestyle. It's like you never know where your next paycheck is coming from. So maybe some of these things where it's, like, you don't have VCs behind it or you don't have money behind it, like, I could see where that's harder, but maybe having communities that, like, jump in and offer help is a good thing. Yeah, and then even beyond that, like, are these open-source applications or software projects at a disadvantage compared to, like, closed-source iPhone apps? Can't you get, like, much more data from those?

Like, literally, like, you can get, like, a heat map of where people are clicking on the screen and then redesign that way. Totally, but that can also be problematic too because sometimes it's that they're stuck on something and that's why they're doing it. It's like if you're just looking at it from that perspective and not, as you said, zooming out or looking at different lenses, you might only see that and be like,

oh, look at how often they're using that. They're just tapping away at that icon. It's because it doesn't work. Or you get things wrong. So I think that's why having these conversations or part of it could be too, like culturally, that's why I say we should be starting local and people shouldn't expect to have answers

for other communities. I think they should listen and learn from them because if we've never been in like Sweden, like I may not know their needs or if you're in China, like there's restrictions. Like honestly, like they may have completely different needs on like an app. It might not just be like it being simple and usable

and people understand it, it's intuitive. They may need like other features that we hadn't predicted or we hadn't thought about in, I don't know, an app we use in California, right? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you're definitely going to need it to be designed with a certain language. That's the other thing, too, like language.

Yeah. Communicating, like, what your app does. That language, like, if you're building an app as a Westerner and then you're trying to take it somewhere else in the world. It's, like, not applicable. The verbiage that you use doesn't really make sense over there. And it's like, all right, how do we do that? yeah 100% I think that's why I like really value what like Kara's doing too like I think audio is so underappreciated but also things like copywriters like we have people I think from

visual design backgrounds often when I talk to them I'm like oh what's your you know how'd you learn about this it's usually like someone went to school or they started like coding on their own but I think what you say matters so much and how you say it and understand it and you can't I mean you can't know how to talk to everyone you've never lived every place but having people who are copywriters and have done this well like would be so amazing to have more of those or people who understand like audio or layout or editorial like what's the best way to say what we need to say in a simple way that's like really effective and so I think that's one thing that we could always improve on if I was to say like what is one thing that I think could really benefit Bitcoin open

source design like having great copywriters I would love to see more maybe that's on us for like not appreciating them enough maybe we need to recruit some and just be like hey open invitation here's what we do I don't know I feel like with designers too like people know about Bitcoin but I don't feel like

it's always so inviting or like you don't feel appreciated where people are like no no we're focused on core and you're like okay that's cool

like do you but I think we could be a little bit better about like getting people in you know who are really good and talented

well that's like and again I have shout out Yazan who owns MSTQ which is a UX UI design he's been getting more

into Bitcoin and like I'm really excited because he's a really good UX designer and like that's the way i pitch it to them like as bitcoiners i think this is we want more designers again we desperately need better design we need people who design with intention and can make it easy to onboard your grandma or your technically illiterate cousin um without and onto bitcoin and be able to use it in a self-sovereign way and so we need good designers and the way i pitched it

to yasin was just like dude like as a designer like if you want to leave your mark on the world You want to create primitives of interacting with a new type of technology like Bitcoin is that wide open canvas. As a designer, I'd be chomping at the bit to get in to design experiences in Bitcoin because you could literally make an impression that last decades, centuries, however long. Just for creating user flows today that become the norm for the people of the future. We need more advocates like you, Marty. If only every pitch was like that. I think it's so true, though. And I think if we approached it from that sort of like appreciative perspective, not just with designers, but with like a lot of people who give their time and talents to Bitcoin, I think we'd see much different products. I think, I don't know, maybe it's just because we're all a little neurotic and obsessive and trying to learn so much all at once. And we don't slow down to just really like be grateful for the work that people are doing and understand what people could bring to the table. Like everyone has a different gift.

And I think if we were to embrace like backgrounds and traditional disciplines that are not like specific to like programming core or lightning, which matter a lot. I don't want to be talking shit on that either. Like they are so important in their own way. So if you are like a developer and you are doing that, that's amazing. But I also think just, yeah, just that sweet spot of having people who like understand and appreciate Bitcoin, but also have their own talent that's not already utilized in the space. Like, I look forward to that in the upcoming years. When I think about like, I don't know, people pitch like 20, 30 all the time. They're like, oh, they're going to have like, you know, we're going to blame Bitcoiners for problems.

It's like, I want to focus less on that. And like, who's playing here? Who's like contributing and who like, what does it look like? what are you know what do we open on our phone or your laptop or whatever like how do I approach going to get like like my local grocer or butcher or wherever like what is that experience like and I think that goes beyond just just design it's like how are you living and how are you appreciating your quality of life yeah and that's one thing actually now you say that thinking about the coffee shop I go to shout out to Wendy at Maha Coffee and Kat and everybody there um

do they listen to the pod should we Wendy Wendy might be listening she's told me that she's going to start listening so Wendy is she BTC pay server yet no well no not yet well that's the other thing no like uh I'm not sure she's gotta be open to it yeah I interrupted you she's open a bit well that's the thing I'm trying to get that's the point like so I just got um obsessed with like NFC payments just like to have to pay uh I didn't know i could do it with my cash card until like six months ago and i was like oh my god everywhere with a tap like and that was like so bringing this back to like bitcoin design like rodolfo coin kite they're designing uh a new version of the cold card with nfc tap payments for psbts but

like and then again like so i would like to go to maha coffee and like have an nfc tap where i'm able to pay bitcoin or lightning or something like that and then again he gets his trade-offs like is that safe is that secure how much bitcoin do you hold on that wallet if there are security trade-offs and what's it is it even possible number one to to create a an experience like that but i think it is possible and i think it does need to be like that if we want like people using lightning specifically as like day-to-day transactions 100 i think those are important things to consider personally for each individual using it like what do you want to give up you can't have it all which is like really sad but i don't know if you can relate to this or do you feel

like you're ever like really existential in any way not hopeful for the future and not not like optimistic but you just think about like why are we here what are we doing like all the time yeah yeah so for me like i don't know if it's like just getting there and i don't know people are really quick to point out like flaws in bitcoin like oh like you'll have to watch out which is valid all the points you brought up are valid but I think about it too where I'm like the systems we're already using are so flawed and problematic I can't be like well it's okay I'll just use my credit card have we not thought about like I mean people talk about all the time being tracked in the digital age like you can already have I mean half of these banks have

already been hacked like I was in the Equifax thing I'm pretty sure most Americans lost yeah so it's like of course that you can always like point out and I think we should think about those things with like how do we improve but if we're just gonna like live in fear and be like well if I buy that coffee it's over now it's like of course you want to like be cognizant and like don't show people that you have so much in your wallet or you know like like have these experiences that you learn and you improve it but I think when people are like really quick to be negative and bring that energy to the table and like I think in my head I'm like we could go we could go that other route too with like our current systems that exist and I think they would be

much darker if we were to really sit down and like write out pros and cons I don't think the list would be worse for bitcoin than it is for our current system oh easily and that mentality is defeat us like we totally should want to design like the most impeccable seamless experience we can we can and people are working on it and by yeah but like to people out there like oh it'll never happen like you're not letting it happen you're not even letting you like with that mindset you have to be open and you have to try otherwise it's like you're relying on other people to do the hard work and that's not fair either if we all want to benefit from it i think everyone can do their own little part and that even could be as simple as like i think people are like well

i'm not a designer i can't really contribute to the design community but like i don't know can you translate can you like tell me about your experience like what was it like can you even like five bullet points on on a doc or like your notes or whatever like that is valuable everybody can bring something to the table i think so something as simple as a screenshot or maybe like a recorded video of you like using an app and like posting it to twitter so like hey i'm using this app and here's where i had a problem it matters it totally matters so i think it is about perspective a lot too and i think that's what i enjoy about bitcoiners and maybe about designers or people who are working open source it's like they're more curious like i feel like

with you you know you can like admit that you're like lazy and it's like okay to be like a little bit comfortable with people but and i think that that idea of not having to be perfect and just being open is is so much healthier than just being negative and be like well there's all these issues it's like yeah we know we understand there's issues that's why we're trying to make it better yeah yeah and it's like it's subjective you're gonna have lazy users you know people who just like getting trapped like what the hell am i doing you're gonna have hardcore users like matt odell you're gonna have uh everybody in between on the spectrum like again you have to design to some extent for all those users for the lazy user for the the technically savvy like super

cypherpunk who who wants to use tor and do coin selection and do like timing analysis of their transaction sends and all that stuff and just creating the facilities through which each user can be as lazy or as james bondy as they want to um is is important yeah totally and also like we're talking about identity and nims and things like that as well like just even something as simple as like identity and making sure people feel comfortable and there's trust and you're transparent with what you're doing I think of course there's different personas and use cases but designing for that too and having people share in their own way which I think is like the valuable thing about what you do with this podcast it's you have different types of people and they

share their experiences and like maybe you don't need to listen to every episode but if you can be like oh well I'm really interested in this person's perspective people can just jump to it and learn about that or like this person's working on this project like okay let's like listen to that one again so i think different ways of documenting work is helpful to designers and i hope to people who are like creating these apps too uh with with less of a design background but maybe they're open to learning and maybe they just want to learn from podcasts from books from the internet like having more mediums of exchange is i think something i'm excited about yeah like we were saying earlier like you know people don't even learn about design but then like when you mentioned

that before we hit record too like the different mediums through which people learn like i taught everything i learned in college to myself on youtube like i could not sit there in a lecture and actually listen without wanting to blow my brains out and stop going to class and just start teaching myself on youtube and going and taking the midterms and finals and i feel like that's more common than not though when you talk to people and you really like get vulnerable like most people i think and this is not to say like don't go to school or drop out but like i've met so many people just like grow up in the big area they're just like school did not work for me like it did not but like they would exit three companies at like 18 and i'd be like so obviously there's

like different ways that people learn i mean we know this but like how do we make bitcoin that for people how do we make sure that like design and bitcoin is like translated in ways that that meet people where they are right so like the kid like marty who like learns on youtube it's like how are we getting that information to them? Yeah, and is it good information? And is it honest information? Yeah. That's the other thing.

There's so much noise out there. Like, in terms of like, you can go on YouTube and you can find a lot about Bitcoin. A lot of it is bad. Yeah, or the opposite narrative too, right? Where people are saying, oh, this is... How many days of the week do you have a new headline where it's like, this is destroying the world?

Seven. Right, right. So it's making sure that like people learn in those ways and I don't know, just continuing to improve on whatever the most relevant medium is. Like maybe I actually think like audio is so intimate. Like so maybe it's for some people, it's YouTube. Maybe for me, it's just like listening to something and going on a walk and being in nature or whatever. Like everybody's different. That, and like, as I said, as I described my college experience, I thought like, ah,

it was like that for like all my math and economics and, uh, in the numbers types classes. But when it was a philosophy class, I loved to go in person because it was a discussion. It was like, you learn about Sartre and Aristotle, Plato, Nietzsche, and like, then you want to be there to actually like, all right, what the fuck did I just read? what are we trying to and so that like that way of learning of conversational in person after having done some heavy reading i like i enjoyed as well but when it came to like economics and stuff i was like okay i'm gonna go to con academy uh and do this um yeah it's like again like a user with different mediums uh by which he learns for different types of subjects which is like a

Like, that's why I love the podcast. I learn a lot on this because it's just conversations. It's great. I'm not, but I'm not learning, like, supply-demand curves and stuff like that. So I'm more willing to have conversations like this and be engaged. I'm just ranting about my life now. I feel like Marty was a designer in a past life. You were, like, some sort of renaissance, like, chiseling away for 30 years straight,

like, trying to get, like, the perfect angle. I wish. Creating inks. I've actually thought about forcing my son to become a sculptor. They're all gone, son. You're going to be the best sculptor. Or like a carpenter. I feel like those trades, so valuable.

So valuable. That's what we actually have. My sister's living with us, and we've got a ceramics wheel in the back. She makes pottery. That's so cool. So if anybody needs plates, my sister will make them. Plates, mugs, vases. Is she accepting Bitcoin?

Well, yes, she is. There we go. you gotta put her on the BTC pay server list we have a list of people who if you're interested in like accepting Bitcoin you can find those really easily and I think there's actually like a lot of people too um I have to admit like a lot of social media really bothers me but I do feel like one thing in terms of merchants and like learning from them like Twitter is great people especially like Afghani refugees and people who are like on the ground in Afghanistan like they're really into Bitcoin I've felt at least from the Twitter like feed that I have it's like yeah finding

people who are like artists and designers and like makers who are like i want to sell saffron like that is so cool to me where i'm like yeah let's just do it like straight to you we don't need a middleman like we'll figure it out you have your craft i have mine like how do we support each other and maybe they don't want bitcoin maybe they want cash either way like well how do we find them let's dive into that who have you found and what have the conversations exactly been like well they've been very different so i tried at first my first step was to approach merchants who were already doing btc pay i didn't tell them what was going on i just wanted to like buy something from most of them or all of them anyone who i could get to we're in the pandemic i'm in the u.s i can't

be in certain parts of asia right now or places are closed off i wish i wish i could just travel there and you know um but but i couldn't so evolve wine is great i don't know if you've ever bought wine from them they accept bitcoin i think they're in the they're in the they're definitely in the bay area i want to say like the peninsula area i'd have to look it up but really cool lovely people and I've bought wine in the past it was like totally flawless experience

and this time I could tell they got into lightning because it was like a month and I was like what's going on like actually I had it sent to like

the HRF conference to like the hotel room and I was like at least I haven't gotten here by now maybe we should follow up and so sweet like the thing is though

for them I noticed like they thought it went to their lightning wallet it went to their on-chain actually paid with cash app because I was like let me just like

keep this all circular economy and yeah it's on-chain when I pay they do on-chain fees and so they were accepting

Lightning they were they were expecting that anyone anymore because Lightning is so like adopted

and people are into it like oh we didn't get any Lightning transaction the past weeks you didn't do it you didn't fulfill this

and you're like no no no you have to kind of like let them know there's multiple wallets and everyone's been so nice but I feel like we learned together too

like the merchants are learning and I'm learning and unfortunately they just like refunded it and I was like no I want you to

so we'll have to we'll have to buy more wine we'll have to have like an Austin an Evolve night but also it's just been great too like I feel like

activists I consider them merchants too I think maybe in most people's mind like it's like getting that coffee or like

going for a burger or whatever but like I think activists are like also people who are like doing non-profits and they're doing initiatives on their own

so when we were at the HRF conference also Freedom Forum we me and Rockstar we helped set up Belarus Free Theater and the women there

do like incredible work too so I think people who are actually in the nonprofit space are getting super creative with like how they support their initiatives and and what's required i think to to work politically and not in an evil way but it's just like we're in different jurisdictions like what do you need to do to be compliant uh and also accept bitcoin the way that you want that makes sense yeah yeah it's again especially

like the belarus example right they were using bitcoin to basically give people who are getting cut off from their banking system money to buy food and shit right that that's a different a different group but yeah i mean there's there were so many fascinating at that also freedom forum in miami and we didn't go to the one in also but apparently in may so uh if anybody wants to go in may i guess that's that's the next oslo freedom forum but yeah there's so many fascinating examples people that is that is one and also what what the woman who i was working with and we're helping her set up her instance which she told me was really fast actually she she said in front of everybody at the bitcoin academy she's saying like i don't know what to do when we have like

dictatorships who are buying bitcoin or they're mining or they're able to get access to a lot more of this then people would even make in a week or month there's no way we could catch up because they get so little ever like i think it's like a few hundred dollars um meanwhile the government has acquired so much more bitcoin and that's not to say like you know no one has a chance to buy bitcoin out there it's just you have to choose between like feeding your family or you have to choose between like buying some bitcoin it's not always as easy as people make it seem like yeah just accept bitcoin for your trans just accept it for your non-profit it's like it's not that easy so yeah especially people who live in a paycheck to paycheck it's like hey you can just

like thrust uh thrust that into or fixed income or anything yeah it's well especially when you consider the volatility of bitcoin too that's what i mean can't be like just smash by 200 they're like that's a lot of money that's a ton of money for them yeah and i do understand that too it's like conflicting when when she's like well we know that like things that the governments are doing like we don't agree with but like how can we you know and I don't know if there's an answer for that when you're when you're designing I think like the policy part is super fascinating too I can't wait to see more people this is another if we're getting into like all my dreams like I would love to see more people in policy like we're gonna need it for sure we are we already need it

but I would love to see like just people who are so articulate with reading and and writing and how they they speak um just be standing up and helping you know in their own communities too not just in the u.s but in their own communities yeah no i mean i'm not articulate but my policy you are articulate my policy would just be just let people bitcoin and leave them alone don't tax them try not to trace them i don't i wish everyone agreed with that but i did too that's where the work comes in right that's where we do the work and that's kind of what i was talking about like these poetic qualities too it's like you don't it's not always like a didactic thing where you're just like okay like what if we worked out how we would do um politics and like

how do we where's the roadmap here it's like sometimes it needs to be more creative and subtle and sometimes I think it requires like just reaching people like and I think politicians too on like a very intimate level and being like this is how we feel and like this is why it's important to us and having that sort of emotional connection and I know some people are psychopaths and you're never going to reach them but like I think when we like go so hard and we're like no like you have this is why it's good like don't you get it like it's just not effective right you have to have this like which I think some people have that gift of like being able to speak with people and connect and i want so many of those people in bitcoin i want them so badly to

just like show up yeah and make those connections because i think we need that to just be like hey like respect your opinion but here's here's where we're coming from yeah especially like after the last couple weeks we've seen hillary clinton come out and say that cryptocurrencies are going to destabilize the dollar and uh countries at that you know that dude dave troy is coming out alex gladstein um saying alex we love alex saying he's trying to uh who isn't coming out alex i feel like every week he has like another he's the nicest guy too it's like leave alex leave alex alone britney meme out of this leave alex alone i do feel like that sometimes like people pick on like people uh you know politically or on on twitter or whatever like

they just know they're like they're very well-meaning and non-violent and they just like go at them so yeah but we have like the again from like a policy perspective we have people coming out and calling bitcoin fascist and a natural destabilizer of currencies and governments which is like it's the opposite you can bitcoin exist uh bitcoin's not fascist obviously it's opt-in like fascis can use bitcoin but the protocol itself is not fascist maybe it's fascist in the sense that it like puts very strict rules that you have to follow and if you don't your transactions don't get propagated but now we're getting to semantics argument so i think that's like where design might come in from a different like unobvious thing where you're like

thinking oh it's just about ux it's just about ux but it's like how do you actually like create those conversations and opportunities to connect with people because i think some people you know they cling to their favorite favorite like athlete or like celebrity or whatever like you see it when like rappers start like adopting bitcoin or whatever whatever like all coin it is like oh yeah this is great like they said it's great like same thing with politicians i feel like people are like oh yeah hillary said that you like or you know warren or whatever there's like let's do it um so how do you connect with people who just believe you know whatever their their favorite is saying or you know the how do you how do you like connect i think that's designed too it's not

just the app it's not just the internet it's not just bitcoin but but in terms of like social like socioeconomic values and just finding people who who maybe hadn't challenged their perspective before yeah and then being delicate to approach it with intention for their particular worldview right like all right and we've got we've got a progressive hillary loving um voter who just saw her scream bitcoin's evil it's going to destroy the world how do we go to that person be like all right um human to human i know you love hillary but i think she may be wrong here uh still okay to love Hillary if that's where you're at no one's saying don't love Hillary but let's challenge some points like if I think with anything if you're just flat out believing everything someone

says like we gotta we gotta work on that right but it's no one's saying don't love your favorite politician no one's saying like if that's how you really feel then you know there I can accept that there's some things they might like and you have to right you have to accept people for who they are but but at the same time it's like the truth is the truth right like you don't want to be dishonest with people well this is why like i think the work that uh i mean it's combining your your work around bitcoin like btc pay server hrf particularly are providing us bitcoiners with the rhetorical not rhetorical tools but the the ammo uh to go combat some of these people who have a fundamental misunderstanding like the n stars movement how those women got

cut off from their bank accounts not even just the women the feminist coalition like spearheaded it but there were more than the women getting cut off they were just the ones to be like let's go let's do it yeah and like i love i'm like get creative go that story though like they were able to get cut off from their their bank accounts and spin up etc pay server and receive bitcoin donations from people around the world amazing within the course of days amazing that highlights the power you go to the hillary voter like you like women's rights don't you like bitcoin literally and i'm not going to say it's saved but it helped this this feminist movement in a in a dark time for them where focus on what you have in common for sure and i'm not i don't want to be a person

who's like telling people what to do or how to think or whatever because i can totally accept that people have different political views and and i think that's really amazing and i don't want to change people i think like that's one thing where i'm like i don't want to push design on people and be like well do you know like this is actually a better experience for x y and z it's like yeah let's talk about it because maybe i'll learn something too like maybe i've found something i misunderstood but i doubt it's gonna be about bitcoin maybe i'll learn something from you too i don't think coming at it like let me educate you like that's not always like the right move either i think that's why having those people who are so articulate who understand the conversation

and can kind of be very level-headed about it too you know you you like can kind of send someone's energy if they're calm you like okay i can approach you but if someone's like going hard like a meme you're like you're so aggressive right now i just really don't even want to interact i had a i had a moment of weakness last week i was at this oil and gas conference and some guy was just sitting next to me and just giving me like all the run of the mill like bitcoin's too slow the government's gonna ban it it's too expensive it's using too much energy and i was getting like physically triggered and like trying to respond to everything and i had a reflective moment later then i was like just gotta have a better who wins there right yeah no one wins there

right which is like well it's slow and dumb for a reason it doesn't it does use a lot of energy but it's good because we're using shred energy and we had the lighting network so it could be medium mixed shades price file like so marty you're wearing your 1031 half people some listeners may know what this is from a design perspective do you guys have someone representing design how do people learn if they're trying to like get their next open source or not even open source like if you're gonna do a business do a business i'm here for everything like who do they approach for like a design specialty like who's their who's their individual on the team if they're like hey we don't even really know where to turn we need some help can they go to 1031 and like reach

out to you or who do they like contact who's like the the design person on that team i mean we haven't designated yet but i'm gonna put my hand up i will be the design i think that people would love to i mean that intentionality yeah yeah like it's uh i mean i like to think i have enough knowledge of the design space to be dangerous to know how to evaluate apps software whatever it may be to have a hunch an inclination of whether or not it was designed in a way in which users will get it intuitively yeah i mean if you have any design questions or need help in the design community and 11031 is helping dma certainly yeah i'm thinking about like you know we have this conversation everyone goes their separate ways it's like a

great time but it's like where do we go from here and i think about things like summer bitcoin or mentorship or i mean i'm happy if anybody's like doing a project like please like we would love to have you like on slack or getting reviews but i just want people to feel like they can always like reach out if they want help because people do need design help yeah just like people would need help like creating an app if they didn't know how to do that like not everyone knows swift and that's okay like go to someone who can help you with that yeah so like giving people who listen to this the resources is something like i don't know the answer to that but like how do we make sure that people are connected in the way they need to i think bitcoin design guy is a great start

um i mean if you're a merchant come come see me i want to i want to get your perspective what do you think of what do you think like how did that come to be how like because i know there was like i'm sorry which which one bitcoin design yeah um well i think for a long time there were people who were interested in in bitcoin but there wasn't a specific community for it steve lee i think deserves a lot of credit and people at square crypto in general for just like stepping up and being supportive of design in this space but i think there are a lot of designers who kind of were on the outskirts or working at larger companies and maybe felt like they couldn't leave their job like it wasn't as if you know chain code existed for people to do a residency

and like get some help and maybe get a little funding to get started if you were like in a different industry and you wanted to get into bitcoin you know you you were capable and like oh i want to do core lightning um those avenues existed um for for a while but i don't think there was anything specific where it's like well I'm a designer and you know maybe I've worked at whatever large company or in a studio or I've just been freelancing people didn't really have a place to go and I I think they deserve a lot of credit this community for going to places like the Figma conference like and and just going to config and speaking or or trying to find ways where it's like there was um like an MIT hackathon it's like people just showed up and they're like

it's our team um there weren't designers there so I really love that they're just taking chances And I think that the people who created it, Steve, I think Daniel is one of the initial people. Christophe is just our like sensei. He knows everything. He's holding us together. And I would love to see more, too. That's something Christophe and I think are going to be working on in the near future is trying to get more people to create these little sub communities that support and fund Bitcoin design. It shouldn't just be one and it shouldn't just be Squared.

It shouldn't just be one Slack channel. Like, I hope that there is more in the future in the same way that there's all these other groups that are working on Bitcoin projects. Right. Whether it be building a wallet, whether it be education, whether it be unchained, you know, whatever it is. Like, there's so many creative ways to go about Bitcoin. I think the design aspect, as you said, there's just opportunity. I really want people to just find their own way. And hopefully me and Christophe can help create that for some people in the upcoming year. that's a goal

an optimistic goal maybe too ambitious but now that I've said it we're gonna do it I don't think that's too ambitious so I guess we need more than

I mean if you have like one way to kill a project like it shouldn't just be one thing like we need four or five I would love to see

like ten of these but even if we had two or three like that's better than like one well that begs the question maybe we can like a new program

for graphic design like but like again like are there yeah big word in the crypto community like base layer of primitives in design that like you can you maybe don't need different sources of information

because we can all agree that here's the primitives of bitcoin design and what you need to take into consideration that's the design guide yeah like here are best practices yeah but i don't think that means you have to like scrap those if you're doing something else it just means like how do we build on that right like yeah okay well now we have the design guide like now what like okay well maybe there's more communities who could do that um maybe there's like somewhere bitcoin you like help younger people you know there's like this girl who comes who comes to bit doves who i'm so into she's like 16 she like so wants to be in design like really wants to go and like her dad comes with her i'm like yes i wish i had this when i was her age and like getting people like that

excited and like introduced in a way where you know this book i brought it and i was telling marty is like i was thinking of this podcast i was rereading this recently it came out a couple years ago but um there are people who are teaching in higher education who do these these courses over you know and lectures for for several years and it's like how do you condense that into something that's simple and what he did was he had a workshop i think this was in la and people just came for the workshop and someone documented the workshop and put it into this book so i think there are ways to kind of like recreate education iterate on traditions and like make sure that people know there's like we evolve and like the things that were relevant before and the ways we

learned before i hope are not staying the same that's something i worry about too where i'm like why are we doing the same thing like with like politics and stuff i'm like it's so crazy some of these things we're still doing this i'm like banking right it's like traditional banking like i i don't know what it's like to be in a hedge fund i can't imagine it's great but i can i can think of the frustration of people who like are smart enough to get like that like why are we still doing these same things when the world has changed like we should be improving and making the best we have the best money possible let's do something with it so i think about this book and i don't know i brought it hopefully marty will give it a little a little i'm gonna read and

talks about typography it talks about like layout and sort of how like there were traditional like you know you have like macintosh and you have like these big names it's like you had the branding there but what is the new branding gonna look like and you know how do we have these conversations in person together and create them together right especially like branding and copyright specifically as the nature of the interaction of a company corporation with the users changing drastically in real time as you have like memes and social media become a thing like it's like to be successful going forward you have to be able to communicate with the zoomers and end the way once you're communicating a medium like memes with the bends yeah our zoomer bends yeah they're good

of communicating actually i was like pretty surprised like i think armin kaufman and like so many other bens that i go by you know various names it's like i'm so i feel like the zoomers are really i don't want to be like the zoomers gonna save us but like they they know how to communicate in ways are way more relevant than like you and i too yes um and i don't think it's because we're like old i think they're just like really like they understand their users so quickly it's like effortless well it's like which is i i am so here for that i think we need way more of those right i mean because we're more bends we're transitioning we're we're almost there right they're like so those bends you just mentioned about 22 so we're in 99 just disgusting to think

about um i love it i love it they're the best but they like they always like when they grew up in a world where when they were infants they could have had uh actually one of those bends is a lot younger than that yeah a couple years younger than that yeah they could have they could they're born with the internet right like where i remember i think i've told this many times but i remember getting caller id for the first time in northeast philly i mean like oh my god i can see my aunt lisa's calling us you're like first cell phone you're like okay i'm fancy and i'd like to get your perspective on this this is a way uh at that oil and gas conference last week too somebody's like trying to like like it was like again the whole the trope and this was day two i had my

I reflect a moment where I was like yelling and just vomiting at the guy like about all the all the problems that he had were not actually problems then day two so he's like yeah I get it it's like how early are we like if you had to like compare bitcoin to the internet and I compared it like we're at the point and I remember this vividly where I uh I downloaded AOL the internet's onto my family's gateway computer I got AOL oh yeah uh from the back of a Backstreet Boys millennium album i got a free like aol cd put it in were you a messenger i was a messenger i like to surf a lot do you remember your username i like to surf a lot oh that was one word nobody could ever read it it was just like i like to surf a lot it was just people just emerged too

and you're like how do you know my name i guess yeah sure we're talking now and uh people are like what is it that it'll say um like breaking it down yeah i should have it was all lowercase i should have had like so where you're going with us before distracted with the username was that the day two this person was like we're early and you're thinking about like we're at the point where i'm taking flashbacks of we're at the point of bitcoin where i'm taking aol free trial cd out of the back of a backstreet boys millennium album great album by the way putting it into my gateway a computer I think would you agree that's where we are I would even say we're earlier than that too and maybe that's like another dark essential thing to say but like I think people often compare

the internet with like the 90s they're like oh yeah like like you see all these like media of the 90s but I think it just wasn't that interesting to people early on but actually one thing I'm into a lot is like audio and um you know there were things like in the 70s and 60s like around FM synthesis like frequency modulation synthesis that are like super relevant to phones and computers And I remember like Alan, do you know Alan Kay? Rings a bell? Why would I know? Well, he's, he's like, I don't want to say the grandfather, but he was very influential

in like physical computing. So like, you know how we have like phones and tablets now, like often people will, will kind of credit him and others too with these sort of earlier ideas. And so you had folks like him at Xerox PARC doing these residencies, which I wish existed now. I would have loved an artist residency that was like Bitcoin related. That's so cool. so you see like you know photos of them like on synths just like honestly probably having their

intellectual property taken advantage of but uh not just like coming up with coming up with um really crazy ideas about like the internet and like focusing on audio to me that was like always the most interesting thing were uh getting into like math and synthesis and like people then thought they were crazy and now it's like everyone has a phone and then people were like oh no like the internet is just gonna be like for porn and whatever it's like i literally cannot get directions to somewhere sometimes without my phone and as much as i'm like don't use google i'm like shameless that's the only thing that feels like right and easy to use like i will just be tracked instantly to get to get i did it here to get to your house like it was just like

yeah i don't know where i'm going i had uh so i think actually 60s 70s is what i would compare early now maybe like 70s because it's been like 13 years right yeah maybe we're like 70 late 70s that's one thing i always worry like not worry but like think about um I'm getting these comparisons 90s 70s internet like even though it's only been 13 years of bitcoin like it's well computing internet are different but yeah like yeah yeah as I interrupt you again proceed as I continue it's an important distinction they are different but like even even though they are different like bitcoin being launched in 2008 like we had the internet we had all the computing build out like how fast do these trends happen or how much faster do they

happen you know with those conditions taken into consideration like we have the ability to coordinate on social media and game plan and do user research immediately where that didn't exist for the internet didn't exist for computing like how how much quicker do things change now that we live in this environment of instant communication globally or does it not even matter well does anything matter we're getting real existential here i don't know i don't know i mean it's hard to say what should and shouldn't matter but yeah i think that timeline is super interesting to lay out it's like if we're comparing it like what does it mean for design and open source what is that you know what was the equivalent i would love to see if we're

comparing these like timelines i would love to see more artists get involved i think about with early computing um like john chowning and fm synthesis and people who like came out and they were actually like like john chowning was in the military he was in like a band and like came to do like a like it was at stanford just like doing music and and then started paying attention to like max matthews and all these people sort of like uh labs and it's like what do we do when we like create different disciplines we put them together and i would love to see like you know and then then you have like these yamaha products that sell for tons of money and it's like those were the highest grossing patents before like google or genetics or you know whatever at

stanford and i think that when we can i hate to say this but people follow the money like i think when bitcoin becomes and products become more lucrative i really hate to say this but because it feels so gross but like i think we need artists and designers to come in here and make it nice it's like when people understand like oh wait we can like patent this like because again another another example of like intellectual property probably being taken advantage of but like um when we have these sort of minds challenging our ideas of like no no we could do something completely different with bitcoin i think that's when we have more of like the early 2000s kind of current like bitcoin state it's like if we're comparing it's like internet timeline yeah people

actually adding a good html css to the internet so you can i hate to say like adding value so much adds value but i i mean i think a lot of people don't think like bitcoin is legit until they understand how it's relevant for them and i think the idea of like freedom if you can't relate to it in another country it's like authoritarian like you might only relate to making money yeah sadly i mean number go up many say is the the best or the not most well it is many i would argue it's most important but like also because you want that liquidity but it all again it's an attention grabber as well that gravitates people and um yeah that changing of industry huh yeah well that's i mean as someone who came from a different background and now you're like fully

immersed in bitcoin maybe till you retire i don't know if that's the game plan but uh i don't know what the game plan is but uh that's another pod for another day i wonder for other people too like did you ever see this path happening for yourself and for designers who are getting into do you think it's realistic for them to to think about a role where they're maybe in a different industry and they have a place here in bitcoin well yeah and that's actually a great segue into one thing i want to bring up like bitcoin has this inherent utility right peer-to-peer digital distributed cash system um you can now like taproot even before taproot you can do interesting things with the transaction you can set conditions that allow you to spend if

each condition is met or different conditions are met you do different things uh then you have a network and all that so there's utilities there but it's somewhat buried or hidden right like as a designer that's what your job is to do is to like not only highlight that utility but make it so people can access it with as little friction as possible and once you do that so like tying this back to what you're saying like you as a designer you can be directly uh responsible for people's ability to access the utility that bitcoin provides which will produce more demand for bitcoin which will make the price go up like that's like one thing i heavily like as we untap this utility via design via user experience and uh user interfaces like

it's just going to drive demand for bitcoin it's going to be easier to use therefore people are going to be more likely to use it and they're going to want to use it more so where does designers come in when i'm starting a bitcoin company i'm like i got this wallet whether it's you know open source or not whatever at what point do you think people should think about getting designers in i think i think immediately but you know i feel like i don't think you can you can what if they're just like we have no money we're seed stage you know like or whatever it's just a group of us you think they should just say who's who's the designer they need first is it someone who is product based is it someone who's a user researcher what do you think is the most

powerful way and how do we how do we take those roles and expand them so we have a more diverse team like when you go with i don't know when you're okay when you tell these people come in do their lectures from their studio it usually wasn't one person they're small studios but people have different backgrounds right yeah that's not like when you said users how do you build out those teams right like how do you get someone who's like i'm a design director okay cool like i do web uh you know i build out for mobile like whatever you know how do you get those teams to form and how do we make sure people are building bitcoin companies know that they matter it feels like an afterthought doesn't it well exactly which i think is a more is a broader question

just for app developers and software developers and people building companies in the digital age like beyond bitcoin like how you should approach a product that you're building with software with a design mindset no matter what you're building right and i think that's maybe something that I don't even want to say it was lost. It was just like never found for a lot of people. Why do you think that is? Because people think software is magic. They don't understand.

It can be, but design is way more magical. Again, design. I think that's like a bias for sure. No, but design untaps that utility that that magic provides, right? No, 100%. And that's part of the reason I ended up going to New York too. Like Stanford doesn't have a design, they have a mechanical engineering degree, but like they don't have the things like a design school has or, you know, that's why the internet is so special. You can learn a lot of this for free online.

Like, you know, and those design utilities, I think like it doesn't have to be either or. It doesn't have to be like we're software based or we're like, we're technical, like we'll get designers later. I think having them both work together is like where the magic is. Yeah, I think you need it. I think so too. We're obviously preferential. we're like shamelessly design heavy which I would I would love to see more of but I also you know I understand if people have their own ideas whether you're if you were a software

developer you are a designer like to you are designing yeah no it can be very artful very but in terms of like learning things like color theory or you know those don't matter as much but I mean there are things in terms of like design principles in the book too um but I think i wish we're like taught in other other things like like if you're getting computer science degree maybe you should be like required to take some design courses that'd be cool and if you're a designer maybe you should uh learn how the software works 100 i'm always saying that people should know how to program yeah which is hard you know if you if you're like trying to get over that hurdle of like uh simple things like right perfect example this you send an on-chain transaction

um and it doesn't confirm right away how do you let the user know that like you have to know understand bitcoin uh at the protocol layer like how broadcasting a transaction and then waiting for it to get included in a block you have to understand that process to design communication tools within the app to let the user know what's happened and just be able to talk to your team right like just to be able to talk to someone who is a developer primarily or who's a designer primarily like knowing how to like program be like i don't know how this is gonna go but i have like a little bit of background i can kind of like prototype something for you super quick it's quick and dirty but it gives you an idea of what i'm thinking of right or you know a developer

too being like look this may not be like the final product here but like i went into figma and here's what i think would be cool like just to be able to have like a productive dialogue on team so that way you do create a better product for people yeah for some reason when you're describing that i can't stop thinking like the meme that's out there where you have like the designer the marketer the developer i haven't seen oh my god will you send it to me yeah i mean And there's plenty of them out there because you have this dynamic between like the product manager, the marketing team is like, it's a popular meme and like SaaS companies, right? You have the marketing team that's going out and customer facing the sales team saying,

we can give you this. We like, we'll give you whatever. I've seen some versions of that, but I don't know which one you're specifically talking about. And they like promise it. And then there's like someone at the top who's like, yeah, go for it. And the developer's like, you're, that's not going to happen. Is it like the one with bloodshot eyes?

Like, I'm learning about like Wojo. jacks and stuff like i'm getting i'm learning about meme culture because i feel like i avoided social media for so long which was probably very healthy i think i'm about to delete it again but i'm learning about i want to be able to keep up in conversations so yeah i need i need to learn this meme i've been uh so busy in the last few weeks that i've just naturally been away from social media more than uh i typically have but it has been very good for my mental health i can say that um it's easy to get triggered online it's very easy so easy and i think about that too like a part of me is like it's so valuable to connect with people on things like twitter and the part

is like don't we have enough problems in bitcoin where we should be focusing on this like i think i just death scrolled for three hours i think i just stalked like six people i've never met before and then you're like i'm not mad at it though that time felt meaningful to me like i was happy but shouldn't we like fix some things like not fix but like like honestly some stuff you're like who's gonna create that if you don't like it could be easy it's just like a figma file like if you don't do it what are some examples of this i don't know i feel like for me that i'm some things i'm behind on are um you know even things like the merchant section even things like feedback or you know someone's like hey i just posted on github like pr is here like

could i mean reviewing is so like you don't need to know everything to be able to like look through someone's someone's request and just be like oh you committed this like let me just take a couple hours tonight have a glass of wine go on github you know and just offer something like it could even be like two tips that are better and that improves it or it could be something like you jump in and you're like working on a ux ui thing i think you know people or groups like btc pay are so open where it's like, you want to come in? You like design? I don't know. Like talk to, talk to, talk to Pav. Like he'll, he'll be like, here's the meetings or calendars here. So I think there's like great examples of, you don't have to work that hard to give really meaningful feedback.

You don't have to have the most talented or biggest portfolio possible. And you could still just the time you take, I'm not trying to like put any social media companies out of business, by the way, like they don't need the business, but you know, the time we take, it's like, is it valuable and like could i be applying it to bitcoin in a productive way not to guilt people who like go on twitter that's a thing um but matt talks about this matt odell all the time where it's like you know we could be thinking about privacy and maybe taking a little time away from that and working on something more more productive for privacy right yeah i'm lazy and guilty too though like i'm totally that person i'm guilt i'm very guilty of it i could stop chasing dave

troy around twitter and telling me he's going to be poor because we're like trying to come to alex This is like rescue. Everyone's like, get Dave. Yeah. Fuck you, Dave. But what do you think about that? I'd love to throw that question back at you. Like if you weren't doom scrolling, you know, a few days a week or a few days a month, whatever,

what are some things that you would take a few hours on and just improve? Ooh, is this like a good prompt to be like, what are we going to do in the next week or two? Certainly. Should we be accountable? Well, again, like I said, I've been trying, I've been trying to make myself busier to stay away from it. And another thing, a lot of my doom scrolling usually happens right when I wake up. I wake up early and I'm just like, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, like just doom scrolling. So I've tried to supplement that by forcing myself to wake up and get early morning workouts in.

Nice. I'm doing like 6 a.m. workouts, just like get up, get out, and I'm back. And it's like, all right, I got to get my day started. Like, I don't think I sent a tweet today, which is other than the podcast I just posted. No shame in sending a tweet, by the way. but like you know time and place right yeah exactly um so that's they make myself busier and then like it's I've got a child now a wife and that's like the one thing if I ever catch myself and I'm like on the couch my son's standing there and I'm like scrolling what the fuck am I

doing I should be doing flash cards with him or something like that but you can catch yourself and that's like the most important thing like be able to like take a second and just like have a beat and be like you know what there are more important things like and this isn't a distill like any like we're just talking about mediums I actually feel like these mediums can be super informative to people but it's like yeah like sitting down and like setting out priorities or just knowing mentally like here's what matters to me and I think that that's like a great way to to design your life that's what uh it's not up right now but that's another thing too I was having this conversation I forget exactly with I think one of my brother's friends was over

yesterday and I was talking to him about he's like I don't look at Twitter it's like just so loud I'm like, it is. But if you know how to use, like, Tweets, I can filter a list. Like, I'm going to be very productive. You added me to a list. I had no idea. Like, I'm still, I only, I told you, I only created this in June because the Benz, like, pressured me a bit into it. Which I'm not mad at.

But I'm also just like, I don't even know when someone puts me on a list. I'm like, what does that mean? Like, these are the tools that I need to be using. I'll show you. For me, Marty added me to a list. I wish it said what list. is it like do you want to be on this list i know i get added to people's lists sometimes and i'm like what does this mean for me i put you on my bitcoin list oh so you can see here wow see i filter i

filter very aggressively on twitter i think tweet decks if you're not using tweet deck on twitter you're using twitter right this is so fun marty i love this little situation that we have going on here so i'm having a great time so i have bitcoin anybody talking about bitcoin i put on that list finance and economics so macro markets they go on that list oil and gas twitter obviously the mining world i've been getting more acquainted with the oil and gas side of things so i need to learn so i have uh experts in the oil and gas um sector on that list and then when i just want to laugh at something at my barstool sports list and i'll find laughing is important comedy is important life is dark enough we need we need to laugh at it a little yeah and so when i need to

lighten it up i'll go over to that part that list and uh keep it fun yeah bitcoin urbanism and speaking of design i'm one of those romantic bitcoiners who wants good architecture to come back a thousand percent oh my i'm with you not even architecture but like designing cities correctly like uh this uh shout out to everything going on in el salvador but i think the the idea that you're just going to like create a bitcoin city and design it from scratch you're here for it no no no you're not here for it okay let me feel like you finished i was like where is this going no like this is like an example like okay you're gonna have president bukele like issue this hundred or this billion dollar bond 500 million to which you're gonna buy bitcoin 500

million it's gonna build out this bitcoin city like that's not how cities should come to be you should not like issue a bond to be like we're gonna build a city it has to happen naturally i can't advise on like how a bitcoin city should be built because it feels to me like that's not my like wheelhouse, but like, what's a better alternative? I've heard a lot of people be critical, which, you know, at first glance, you're like, Oh, kind of like, you know, I get it. But like, what do you think is like a better alternative? If you're seeing it right now in Austin? Okay. Okay. I think what's going on in Austin, like I came down here and there's a lot of people who are just being, and it's not like, we're going to build this city and it's going to

be a Bitcoin city. It's like, all right. I think Parker Lewis has done a good job of recruiting people to austin specifically um but yeah no i came many reasons uh growing a family to be able to live in affordable house with room and a yard so my child can run around not a studio apartment in new york and you can keep more of your family here i mean i don't even know about your sister that's awesome yeah she's here to support family i think it's like that's the most important yeah i agree um but like i came down here there's a bunch of other bitcoiners coming down here it's just like happening somewhat naturally um and it's austin is becoming a bitcoin city i would say um so you think it has i don't like the idea of like building out like it's gonna be like very

subdivisiony i would imagine and like there's other people too like building compounds and like mexico and stuff like that like yeah me personally like i i want to live by my family um i will move to a city with a lot of bitcoiners in it but i don't want to like live in a Bitcoin or commune at all. Yeah. Yeah. Different approaches. I feel like also, you know, I want to be able to want to use something or want to do something. And if my opinion changes, I want to be able to like change my mind on things. Or if I'm wrong about something, like tell me I'm wrong and like, let me learn. So yeah, I think there's definitely, I don't know. I couldn't advise on it, as I said, but I think choice is a good thing and people should have the

optionality of doing what they want and if it's not bitcoin that's fine too i hope it is one day i think it will be one day but you know i don't think we should force anything on anybody like anything on anybody well yeah we don't and there's a beauty of it we don't have to when it comes to bitcoin like bitcoin's just gonna naturally uh you're gonna have to interact with it and design for it at some point in the future if it does become what we believe it will which i think is happening and will continue to happen um but again if you're a designer out there get in early let's do it make your mark it doesn't feel early to me i don't know why it doesn't feel early to me maybe it's just because like we've been growing up with the internet for so long i don't know

were you on irc before i've never been on irc i told you i'm lazy you should do it download like the free node project and get an irc i mean it's problematic in some ways but isn't everything on the internet so i don't know i feel like to me it's just like the design factors for sure i would say like newer but um I don't know it feels like it's it's should have happened so long ago and I feel like people are finally coming together like we were all and so I feel like for me like most people in that I talked to about design are not U.S. based so really yeah yeah it's so interesting there's a lot of people in uh Europe who I talk to pretty frequently um quite a few people in Nigeria especially younger people in Nigeria which I am obsessed with I'm like I want younger people

for like non-Western countries to like to hop into the conversation. It's like, you know, how do we help each other? Like, you don't need something like, you know, I'm old, but I can accept that I'm aging. You don't need like some woman in America, like white woman in America telling you how to design.

I want to learn from you. Like, tell me what I'm missing. And like, I think that's like what's so incredible about, it happens with core. And I mean, I love Chaincode. I did the whole GitHub curriculum. and but um i think that it happens in a way that it's maybe maybe supposed to happen i don't know if there's like destiny or fate or whatever but it feels very natural when you're talking with

people it almost feels like do you talk to like bitcoiners at bit devs and you're like i feel like i just understand your soul yeah even though you're different people and you have different opinions and you're like okay i don't know if i believe that aspect like we are not the same there are some people where i'm like we are not the same but like but it's okay but you understand a little bit about like almost like like no time has passed you're just like all of a sudden at cooper's like 10 minutes later and you're like anyway so tell me about your family like like the whole you're like okay this is i just feel like you can't do that with a lot of other people and people are so generous and kind i think that's like a bad rep that people

in bitcoin get it's like oh you're like toxic it's like yeah and it's they're very kind and i just feel like when you meet people in person when you go to these meetups it's like i don't know maybe i'm sensitive or something but like no i i feel like i can like relate to people without even knowing them yeah i've um i've experienced this uh for years now in the bitcoin community matt o'dell is a very eloquent way of describing it too it's like you're your kindred spirits almost you know and it's like this thing is you know bitcoin i think a lot of bitcoiners understand that bitcoin is bigger than any of us individuals in it um and it is most people yes some people aren't in for other reasons but yeah but most

people who you go to these like community events with yes yes and it's somewhat of like a space race manhattan project and if you're at these community events a bit of similar meetups i think everybody has a or most would have a base layer understanding of what's at stake and are there for very intentioned reasons and i think that's just like everybody has an unspoken agreement that around that and it just creates a an easy jumping off point for me like all right we know we agree on bitcoin that it's necessary and then it's imperative like i like you even if we don't agree on a lot of things i like you yeah totally and that's one thing too where it's like i look at look at the world and you know it's easy to focus on the

problems but then i meet people and you go to these events and it almost like restores your soul a little bit like i don't know if this is it feels like a family reunion when you go to like some of these conferences you're like hey guys we haven't seen each other in a year and like almost like twice a week we're meeting online and like it's so it feels so good to like meet people for the first time who you've met on the internet is that weird like it's like i don't know if it's creepy but like maybe during myspace days that would have been creepy to be like yeah we just met on the internet we're gonna go to a park tomorrow like that would be maybe a different situation but like i feel like with bitcoin there's like a rich conversation around it and

like not to say there's not creepy experiences those can happen anywhere but it feels like so good for your soul when you meet people oh yeah it still uh freaks my wife out she's like you're just meeting random people on the internet and meeting them in person like yes yes this is what's happening honey but she's gone to some events right she's gone to some bitcoin things she's been how does she feel about it she uh she loves it um she's been to bitcoin 2019 bitcoin 2021 so she's been to that conference twice um any austin stuff any events here no not outside of like us meeting up with other Bitcoiners that have kids and like at the park.

Yeah, like casual. Yeah. I brought her sister to BitDev two months ago. How is it? It was good. Her sister's getting more into Bitcoin. Yeah, but my wife, she would not fare well to BitDev. She would die of boredom within like 15 minutes.

I think that can be healthy to have like partners and people in your life who are just like, that's your thing. Yeah. That's your thing. That's great though. I feel like getting the family on board in their own ways that feel comfortable to them is so good.

And, you know, it's like we said, like designing quality of life and like making sure that you don't understand. I mean, don't go too deep into Bitcoin where you lose like what's important to you, like family, friends, like quality time, you know. Exactly. It's a tool to make those things better and more secure, which many people do lose that sort of guiding principle. Why do you think that is?

I think there's a lot of clout chasing out there where people. For sure. I think similarly to where there's an open opportunity for designers to make their mark in the world. I think a lot of quote unquote Bitcoiners out there think they can do that as well by articulating their thoughts aggressively and vehemently and often online. There's like some drama too about people stealing each other's tweets or something. Like there's like all this like cloud chasing that I don't understand. I don't seek to be a part of, but just part of the reason I'm like, do I delete this account? Like, I just want nothing to do with it.

In fact, it really creeps me out in, like, a lot of ways. But that's not to say, I mean, I get it. People have to put food on the table. Maybe that's someone's, like, being an influencer is, like, a job for people. I don't know. I don't pretend to understand that world. But I definitely think one quality about Bitcoiners that I really appreciate is they're so smart. I think most of them get it and they're intuitive enough to be, like, the people who are really building and creating things and working on projects every day, they kind of know what's up.

I think it's more sad for people who, like, don't really get it. And you're like, that could be really bad if you just, like, blindly follow these people. And you're like, well, they got rich off of it. Like they're telling me that they did this. They're like, great, let's do it. Or they know like so-and-so, like this is great. Like that is really dangerous. And I don't know how we like get people involved

and more focused on like building and making and being creative with Bitcoin and, you know, off the influencer track. Like who cares about clout? Like I'd rather be like a person who has zero followers and no account and just being like have two friends and like a channel that I'm making something cool with.

Yeah. Maybe you can relate that. You do the podcast, right? Like you have your like core group of people and you're like let's focus and go deep like that to me is amazing yeah and that's what I try I mean again I got the irony of being a podcaster and tweeting a lot uh and me saying like there's a lot of clout chasing on it's not lost and that's one thing I tried to oh you own it of course well own it and also like have intention with the podcast and the newsletter and what I put out

there like i want to think i'm not doing it to cloud chase i'm trying to be as authentic as possible and to push people that's why i'm very happy to have you on like i don't think there's enough people talking about design and bitcoin i have nothing useful to show i have no product there's no pc on my back and i thought about it too i was like do i even like come on and talk like there's no one making me do this there's no and there's no like incentive the incentive is to make bitcoin better always right and i hope that more people are on board with that and you know I hope that more people are driven by that just intrinsic value. I think they are.

I think that's like people like you do this podcast and started off. And of course, there's sponsors and whatever. But like, I mean, there's like something deep within you. I think that eventually you get to if you're in Bitcoin like long enough and it just draws you to make it better for people and people who don't even know or people who don't exist yet or whatever. It's like just for everybody making it and it's impossible for everybody, but as many people as you can. Life is short. We're going to die soon. Let's make something cool that people can use.

And maybe they make it better, but if we don't start somewhere and we don't give them something to jump off on, like, I don't want this project to die. I want, like, you know, good family units and people who care about each other and go out to the community and take care of each other. Like, I think Bitcoin brings out the best in people, and I want more of that. I do as well. And you actually just made me think of something while you were saying that. During my many rants. Are, do you see a scenario in which we could, like a lot of people would argue that the internet has designed and implemented in its current iteration, there was a lot of early design mistakes, particularly around the storing of personal information that have created a big headache today for users of the internet. like do you foresee that possibility creeping into bitcoin if so like from a design perspective

i think it already has let you finish your question though from a design perspective what just from a design perspective like are there things that like we're doing now that could in your view lead to headaches in the future yeah well i think like matt odell does such a good job about like pushing privacy pushing security but yeah even simple things like you're on an app like they track you that is not always safe right and like we normalize a lot of that just like don't know whatever and keep it on your phone but like yeah having things stored and and just because you don't you know if someone says they delete your data and you still put it out there so um yeah i anticipate problems i don't think anything is perfect but i think you

got to be realistic about it and try every day to be a little bit safer and a little bit more private no one's perfect we're all human we're gonna make mistakes but even you know data use isn't the only thing we made we took we did i won't say wrong but like that was problematic you know you think about how was the early internet funded right who made this happen who funded these researchers who are grad students like 20 years old and they were just brilliant you know darpa like a lot of military presence right and i'll say that was the only thing funding it but if you're really to like be honest like it's it's military support i know a lot of people in bitcoin have strong opinions about uh human freedom and uh and war and then the violence

of government. And I probably should be saying this publicly on the podcast, but like, I think that it's important to just be aware, like we would not have the internet if it was not for some of that funding. And that does get to be a very complicated conversation. And so when I think about Bitcoin, do I think that won't still happen where we won't have sources of funding that are coming from problematic places? I anticipate that happening. And I do have concerns about that. So yeah, as much as I'm like data and privacy, like, of course, that is a huge safety concern. But i also worry about like what we're contributing to and like what it means long term for bitcoin yeah it's much larger than than you or i but no i just try to stay positive and work on projects

in my own small way i don't know i have a lot of fears but i probably shouldn't make people gear up to the fear train like that talk more about your fears for your fears talk about my dreams and my fears in this podcast i would love that for like a topic it's like you just get people in a room like what's your bitcoin fantasy what's your bitcoin fear um uh song of the pod is meek mills dreams and nightmares we're gonna we're gonna get that on sometime wait how do we feel about like meek mills presence in bitcoin i feel like there's like a whole thing where i don't know and i've noticed too like i don't know if there's a completely different tangent but i one thing i also worry about too is like uh probably the wrong people to be mentioning this about but like i think

about like a16z and like how they have funds it's great that they're getting like um more like There are specifically black funds, which I'd love to see. But it also troubles me that it's, like, celebrities and people who are, like, influential, maybe, like, Scientology backgrounds. And, like, I'd love, but, like, there are people where I'm, like, actually, like, I feel like Chris Lyons and certain people. It's, like, you could, like, really look to them and be, like, that is a great example of someone where, like, I don't know if I could ever get into some of the programs he's been into. I've never had the same experience. But, like, I do worry that, like, a lot of the cultural influence where it's, like, oh, you're a rapper and whatever. Like, I don't want to miseducate people.

And I want people to feel safe, too, if they're rappers and they're, like, I own Bitcoin. I don't want them to feel like they're good. Like, they're still a Bitcoiner. I don't care if someone's, like, rich or famous. It's like, I always want to look out for their safety. And I'm like, I don't know. Are we, like, doing people a disservice by, like, publicly making it a thing? I don't know.

Like, is that a problem? Obsessed with Megan Thee Stallion. So she can give me tutorials all day. Thank you for the stats you sent me, Megan Thee Stallion. She's also a Texan. Yeah? Yeah, just like Erykah Badu. Some great Texans out here.

Yeah, the, uh, you know, it is hard, though. I go back and forth, right? Like, obviously, like, Jamison Lopp's made it a point of, like, don't publicize that you're a Bitcoiner. People will $5 wrench attack you in the future. But maybe they're already so famous, it doesn't matter. They have great security. I don't know. But, like, I just want, I don't know.

I want people to be safe. I worry about that. I do as well, too. And it's, like, people don't realize when they're, like, commenting. And they're just, like, I don't know. I'm not trying to be crazy. But I do see that where I'm, like, it's great to get the free stats. But now you just, like, are saying I'm interested.

Which is, like, another public way. I hope they're doing it with, I don't know. people talk about this like you hope that people have the foresight to know to use like a name but not always sometimes you use your first and last name because you just are wanting to be open with people yeah and that's so that's that's where i go back and forth it could be like nothing but if people i don't know so i have a lot of safety concerns about people well i default to the safety concerns and defaults like my default view is people should have concerns over their safety as they're accumulating bitcoin but then like there's also the white pill marty side of me

where it's like hey if this is successful it's gonna be pretty pervasive and you're just gonna assume everybody has bitcoin all right yeah um at that point is the risk that high i mean unless you're talking about exactly how much bitcoin you own i think and that's another thing design can fix too you can design experiences where somebody we can do it all can come up to you and you're like if you design experiences that become pervasive that make it so any potential attacker has to factor in the ability that the probability that Bitcoiners are using software in a way where you can't just walk up to them and take their Bitcoin. Yeah, totally.

Yeah. And people have talked about that too, where it's like, if you're in a country where there's gang violence and you don't even know it, like you might have to give all your Bitcoin that's in your wallet. And if you don't know to take it off and have like, you may just have fallen into this Bitcoin situation because like your government was like, here's Bitcoin, we're doing this now. And then you're like, okay, cool. I have all my funds on my wallet and like that's taken because you go into the wrong area at the

wrong time like yeah I don't know there's so many safety concerns and like fiscal safety and I also worry about I don't know we can get really into this but like I just want people to be like I actually really appreciate the education so from like a celebrity perspective I'm like if that's what needs to happen for people to get to have their attention like to start saving and things like that that's great but like I don't know publicly putting your information on like on like social media like that scares me and I hope that like maybe that's where design can come in And maybe, like, I think that's the right view. We have to be optimistic.

We can't just go down this, like, crazy thing where it's like, oh, no, well, it's going to get violent. It might, but I'd rather be positive and get as many talented people as possible to be like, actually, here are the safety concerns. Let's talk about them and how do we improve them. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's funny. Whenever I go back to bars, the little big cat always asks me, how much Bitcoin do you own?

Bitcoin Marty. And I'm like, stop asking me that question, Dan. Yeah. um yeah i don't know how much time we have if we're running low but i want to like just leave i don't know i just want i want to ask like if you could have three designers in bitcoin who were not dead or alive any brand any company any product you just are inspired by them who do you wish could be working in bitcoin right now whether it be anonymously or not like what product who would you who would you early yeah what comes to mind like these are the best of the best i mean

i'm happy we have cash app focusing on bitcoin because they are they you would say they're like the best one very good design so that's one um i would agree with that but i think they do a good job of articulating it too like when they launched their bitcoin thing and they had the bitcoin children's storybook i thought that was very nice i love it yeah and they had like the mining piece that they did um is that more square cash i don't know if some of that square crypto but I mean, Steve Jobs is like an obvious, like, it just feels almost too easy to say. So I'm like, in my mind, I'm like, who except for Steve Jobs. Design-focused, too, with Reed.

The whole thing where he's, like, crashing classes at Reed College. Yeah. Like, typography-focused. I think we need more type designers like that. And then, uh... One more. Dude who designed the Japanese toothpick. um yeah what are you talking about that's another it's like one of the like so there's so much

detail to the the japanese toothpick like you can uh you can snap off the top like fifth i'm gonna be looking this up at like 3 a.m and this is just like i mean it's such a smart little design thing it's like obviously wood like a jagged or not jagged but uh pointed and and the other end the dull end it's got ridges in it and you can snap one of the ridges there's two ridges you snap the lowest one off and then if you only have one toothpick and you want to keep it clean but you don't want to keep it in your mouth you put the uh the part that you snap down off and you rest the uh the wet tip on the other ridge so it's not sitting on a dirty surface so that's like one beautiful just detail oriented exactly that's why i would want that design is so good

I know, I feel lucky that we have so many people in Japan who are focused on Bitcoin. I don't know how deep you get into it. But whenever, like, you're talking to people from Japan, you're like, I don't know. They're so thoughtful. Not even design. Programmers, too. I'm just like, wow, I actually didn't think about it from that perspective. Yeah.

Like, detail-oriented. So that's, again, going back to, like, it's important, right? Especially as, like, you have things like Taproot. I mean, you have BEC32 now. So now, like, when you go in, you're like, spin up a Bitcoin wallet. it's like all right what address structure do you want the little things do you want do you want a legacy do you want a wrap segway do you want back 32 do you want tap pay to tap root like and then like all right there's a new user it's like what the fuck does all this mean

like yeah and how does it pertain to me like yeah yeah um so you need like communication detail-oriented quick communication within the app to that's the thing about the japanese toothpick there's nothing needs to be communicated it's almost so you're hoping it'll eventually get to that point where people just understand like I get what's going on here with very little explanation like an intuitive

those are great I don't know if Cara's mic but I'm kind of curious about his perspective as well maybe he can tell us offline maybe he can tweet it oh he has a mic I was looking it up Marty but you're not coming in I can hear him

I don't know if that's what you mean by coming in but I can hear him oh i can't hear you on my headphones if you can hear on it um i was gonna say uh shigori matamoto i think that would be my pick shigori matamoto the guy who made mario and nintendo oh i think like i would like to see what bitcoin would look like under his vision you know yeah that'd be cool hell yeah i mean he's he's dealt with a lot of pipes in his life too which bitcoin uh bitcoin has a lot of pipes whether it be transaction relay or or internet bandwidth and stuff like that

to take into consideration. Love it. Car, two more. You have a punk rock background. Anybody who you think could bring a little fire to Bitcoin? Oh, man.

Artist, designer, maker. I'm just waiting for like Radiohead to do something. I don't know why the hell they're not doing anything. And then like Beastie Boys would be cool too. Oh, we can't though.

Not the OG. We could never get the OGs back. R.I.P. Rest in peace. Yeah. I want to see what Radiohead would do. And then, of course, I'm waiting for like, what's up, Banksy?

I want to see what he does. Because I think he's just going to drop something. It's just going to shock everybody. And he does shrimp on Bitcoin. Totally. I think Carr kind of hit the nail on the head when I was talking about things being poetic. And maybe I'm saying it the wrong way.

But just like, yeah, you're talking about just dropping something. Like people need to understand it in a different way, in a different lens. And when it creates a conversation and people are like, wait, what's going on? Whether it be positive or negative, it's like, no you can only say things so many times the same way if it's exhausting and people are just like look i get it and they don't want to hear it but maybe if you had like a different piece of

conversation especially public art or things that aren't private like that's kind of what's amazing about like open source but like just throwing it out there in the world and be like anybody wants to see this here it is yeah no now you say that being from philadelphia it's such a shame that they've fucking destroyed love park that's another example that was such a good skate spot kevin bacon's dad uh he was the architect at design love park and uh really yeah and uh was that like a thing that locals talked about uh during the tour of the city i kept bacon's dad uh he like a robin williams san francisco thing we're like oh yeah he did a lot of things in philly kevin big kate and bacon's from philly his dad was an architect but yeah that was like another

thing like you design this park as a public space and then realize skaters would take it over and become like one of the most iconic skate spots so good in the world but he was so cool about it too that's why i respect him particularly because he loved that it turned into this thing he never imagined it would where like literally they'd be in video games just because of the way it was structured yeah that mark suchu away days adidas videos that's like the last one i remember watching before i got yeah i mean stevie williams got his chops there chris chris uh chris cole what about papa bent and your dad skated right my dad skated yeah um in the 80s he was a kid running around philly um when's your dad doing an episode here you are uh i would love that so uh he runs a

coffee shop back at our hometown and over christmas break uh we're gonna do a podcast with my dad and our neighbor yes um yeah i can't wait they're kindred spirits they have a bromance and they run this coffee shop together i think it's just gonna be funny to get i've been onboarding them on the bitcoin as well um i think so great see i feel people like are like oh well i'm at this age i can't possibly and then i hear your dad and like some of these episodes and your dad's just like down i'm like this is great so he's like papa ben i'm here for papa ben grew up punk rock i think that's probably why no car's nodding he's here for it we're all here for it listen to a lot of punk rock growing up i think that's i have a bit of a rebellious

ice skating like east coast punk rock like bad brains what are we talking about my dad was british punk he liked the clash uh we listened to a lot of clash um um so not even punk rock so like uh the clash and the cult were our two like go-to bands in the car so yeah british punk in the clash and then like british 80s wave rock in the cult um it seems like the cult's a little punky too like bad fun's a good punk song i would imagine I feel like so much of the music I learned was from skate videos. I used to work at a skate shop growing up. And it exposes you so much, like, art and design, too.

And that's, like, one of the things that made me fall in love with, like, design, too. Even just, like, how a board is made or the graphics on it and just, like, I don't know. Do you remember being so excited when you get, like, a new setup? You're just like, yeah, this is the best. And, like, I think about that experience super quickly. I'm like, what's it going to be like when you have your kids and you're just like, so here's a new hardware wallet. Like, people already get so excited, I feel like, when it's like, oh, an open dime. Like, oh, is this a different design?

like even the small things people who don't like maybe primarily identify as designers like they're great at it too well that's funny you bring that up too and i and you can see that like different tinge of personality and the different ski teams like chocolate's different than baker it's different than where the chocolate bigger chocolate and girl are the same like ownership like krill top uh and then baker and death wish death wish yeah yeah like i was when i was towards the tail end of my chicago like the chocolate team and it was like uh raven tershi um as still killing it yeah still killing it well he had he had to get out of the game for a while i mean most people do but kenny anderson's in his 40s and he's crushing it so it's like you know

you have an injury come back and i think he still skates for chocolate who else was on the chocolate team it was like raven tershi um elijah burley um as i correct you on your own podcast what else can we talk about what else can i just explain but they had so embarrassing i'm sorry marty no stop i will not i will not i will correct your skater last names no you should because that was wrong um but like yeah the chocolate had a certain vibe to them baker had a certain vibe to them and yeah um it's a branding it's like getting that different like again like the girl and chocolate teams like they were completely different but people it attracted different demographic right like i might be more indie like kind of like diy collage kid i might gravitate towards mark johnson

more than i gravitate towards brands and people and like the celebrity kind of like heavy hitter sean malta like i don't know that's what's fun too it's like i don't think all bitcoin design has to be the same i hope we can get into that point where it's like there are different little niches for people who are like no i want to be more like refined and like polished and there's gonna be some people are gonna be like no i want to be more like hip-hop and i want to do my own thing and I want to just you know feel like people have like there's different just like different skate teams were like doing their own thing I think yeah I look forward to that day when it's like I'm sitting there with my future kids which I hope exists someday you know but

I'm sitting there and I'm like okay so we're going on we're looking for their new like hardware and I'm like okay what speaks to you there's like not really a lot of that there's a handful of options but nothing where it has like personality and it has like style where it's just like oh that one is that and I identify with this and this is the cool brand right now yeah that's like that's what i love about skating you have so many different styles and like some like people think i look like jamie foy um that's a little bit like i grew my hair out no jamie's definitely younger than me he's younger but some people skate who are young they look old to me jamie does not look young i feel like you look younger but he's like a bruiser like and that's like something i identify as a

bigger dude and just like crushing like 30 stair yeah oh yeah um board slides and like uh that's yeah because that's one thing i do with my son when we wake up on saturday morning oh he's scooters but we'll uh we'll warm up by watching like thrasher clips and stuff like that and that's like when you just go like clip to clip and it's a different song a different style of skating and that's uh i'm just turning it to a skating podcast now we're talking about skating no we're gonna bring it back though because i do feel like um one thing that's interesting about like thrasher is like they've been in sf for so long and they've seen it like change from like a tech city to not and i think a lot of people are bitcoin too and they've seen

like a lot of tech influence their lifestyle and like society too it's like i'm happy to keep this as a skate podcast but like i don't know i think about like how our tools affect us and change us in our cities and i don't think like a lot of tech has a lot of good services for cities like san francisco but you still have those fun edgy pockets like thrasher and i think you know like how awesome is bitcoin i think that could be like the kind of like little edgy punk rock where it's like we're gonna see tech change it here too it's already happening right for better or worse whether you are you know i don't i don't care if you're a tesla employee or google or whatever like we're all real friends but it's gonna change the city yeah you know and in the same way that it did

with the bay area at large so it's like how do we see things change but have these like fun little like edgy moments yeah i think it can happen i think that's the cool part about it things like samurai wallet uh ronin dojo uh other sparrow wallet specter and then they're like the edgy like self-sovereign very private uh high caliber technical literate user centric um designs we need more of it let's do it yeah and then you have like the unchained of the world for the people looking for financial services that are okay with like using their bitcoin as collateral and having to give up some information for some cash and you have the uh tesla there's a little tangential to it but yeah yeah sure um yeah i'm excited for the future i'm excited

for cities like austin i'm excited for i don't know just to just to be alive right now i feel i don't know it feels like some people can get really negative but like i just feel lucky to be alive and like experiences and having these conversations and just like shooting the shit and being able to be like we need more design that's such a privilege yeah what is our what is our before we leave on it two things from you yes what are some projects um that you believe have very good design principles that are designed well in the bitcoin space um and what is your pitch obviously we've given a lot of pitch to designers today but like what's our what's our ending pitch to the designing community that is looking outside uh from the outside looking in

to bitcoin okay i'll start with the first one and that's what is a a product in bitcoin that i think has done really well yeah or a few products or like what yeah what are some examples of things that you think have been well thought out from a design perspective well i'm obviously biased because that's what i was drawn to that's what i contribute to what i what i hope will grow larger and when i talk about open source i mean there's places that are like your open source but they're full-blown like making money in companies i don't think we should leave them out of conversation i think there are many good examples i think cash app while it's not open source like as you said it's great like i think that they really speak to their users and they listen i

think that's awesome but i think btc pay we're talking about accessibility we're talking about languages like what other project does 29 languages we can just drop down menu it like it's so easy and functional and i know they're gonna get even better too which which is something i'm excited about so i would say btc pay because i'm i'm preferential and i'm shameless i will i will definitely pick favorites here and the second question is what is a pitch for people to join in is that what it was or yeah trying to recruit for projects I would just say um I don't want to be prescriptive I think everyone has a different gift and designers like that's the thing design is huge like specialties vary and uh I think people should come in and find their own path

we have so many projects they come into the slack so bitcoin.design just check it out leave if you want sign up if you want to sign up for the newsletter and come into the some meetings we do jitsi we do community calls uh we've started doing twitter spaces which has been like a fun experiment so uh i think cool what i want i personally want to help with the merchant section so anybody who wants to hop in and if you're even new to design i'm happy to like walk you through whatever we're doing um what else is a cool one i think that the icon set that they just released is really sweet but come on in just like message me on on bitcoin design we'll we'll hang out bitcoin.design bitcoin.design and there's so many like i feel almost weird being here because i'm

not even the most active or interesting or cool or productive person like you will be way more impressed with people on here that's the one thing i will say like i feel so humbled to even get to contribute in the small ways that i do like if you want to see some real like cool open source designers like this is the spot i'm like nothing compared like the christophs out here they're so good yeah well and if you're don't sell yourself short number one number two if you're designer again like what is the the goal to make bitcoin more acceptable and intuitive and if you do that and you help do that via design you are going to bring more value to bitcoin in the again by making more and acceptable more intuitive you're acts giving more people access the utility

that bitcoin provides so once they get that utility they'll want more of it and it's going to push bitcoin forward we need you we do i can't design for shit we need each other i had a lot of fun uh going to that design class and learning about it but i can't i can't even draw i do but there's always room for somebody too right like don't even feel like you couldn't give reviews or feedback or whatever that's that's what i'm gonna do our designer's gonna design without your feedback i'm not gonna wireframe anything for you or record a video like a poc yes um that was funny last night my wife and i went down the street to get dinner at a new neighbor's house and uh their son is like eight years old was drawing and he asked me to draw

and I like drew something it was way worse than what he was drawing people will surprise you too I feel like some people are just like oh I'm not good at this and then they do like an immaculate sketch and you're like I thought you just told me you weren't good at it so it's like sometimes when people think they're not good at they're actually amazing at or they're super humble I can uh I'm not being humble right now being uh straightforward I cannot draw for shit this was fun this was a lot of fun i want to do it again sometime i cannot wait for your dad's episode i'm like obsessed i'm ready let's do it tomorrow we're gonna do it over the christmas break i can't wait he's gonna be pumped he's gonna listen to this and uh he's

gonna be like you said it we're doing it no you have to do it we did talk about it we talked about it over the weekend uh he's got an interesting story um let's get into his design perspectives and his skater stories. He's got a weird aesthetic. He's in his early 50s and he's wearing like plaid Jeff caps now. He's trying to look like a jazz dad. I'm like, dad, chill out, bro.

I'm actually here for it. I'm like, go off, dad. Do you. What else are we putting into the arsenal? He's going to be a fashion dad. I feel like we don't know it now. We're going to look back and be like, actually, you know what he was doing.

My dad does not have a... I'm not going to shit on my dad. We'll talk about it on the podcast, dad. I'm ready. Let's do it. Thank you, Marty. Thank you. Where can we find more about you?

At BenTricia21 on Twitter. No, that won't last long. It will be gone. Come on to Slack. Come build things with us. That's how we'll meet in real life. Go to a BitDevs. Yes.

We'll hang out. All right. We need you. We do. Peace and love, freaks. Okay.