Excerpt
Anita Posch spoke at the founding event of the Bitcoins Devs Lusaka about why Bitcoin matters for financial fairness and how developers can shape its future, especially in Africa. I shared stories, tools, and opportunities for learning and earning with Bitcoin. Watch now and take your first step into Bitcoin development today!
Here you can find the slides of this talk.
Transcript
Introduction
So who am I? My name is Anita Posch. I was a web developer, online marketer, e-commerce project manager, and all these kinds of things for 20 years of my life. And then in 2011, I tweeted the first time about Bitcoin, but I can remember that. And I remember I was like, okay, I think this is just a new PayPal. I actually don’t need that. And I dismissed it. So it took me also quite some time, but I’m also coming from a country like 100 years ago in Germany and Austria. We also had hyperinflation. So it’s not only something that Zimbabweans or Venezuelans have to suffer through. Also in Europe, we had hyperinflation. That’s why I made it my journey in a way to share Bitcoin knowledge, especially in African countries or in other countries in the global south. That’s also why our organization is called Bitcoin for Fairness, because I believe that it’s the best tool for communities who are disadvantaged for any reason to make the wealth disparities smaller. And it’s now the time for you to be able to move up a little bit and become independent. That’s why we always say self-sovereign in Bitcoin. And that’s why I have been doing this for the last five years, traveling to different African countries and supporting communities on the ground. And also now we have started the Crack the Orange program to learn online, because of course, people like me, we can’t go everywhere. But we want to support people everywhere and also learn from everywhere.
Importance of Local Solutions
So now I want you to show, because I’m very excited that we have a lot of developers here today, because I believe it’s very important and also a great chance for you to earn money globally, earn Bitcoin through your work. And also I think it’s very, very important that you here on the ground build your own Bitcoin and lightning solutions. I see like in the last five years, I have been doing this work here and I always see people waiting for someone else. Yes, there are already wallets that are working that are fine and whatever. But you, in these countries here, you have special situations. It can’t be American companies or European companies cannot solve the problems or challenges you face. And they also don’t know about the background. So they can’t be as creative as you can be.
Bitcoin Ekasi Example
And so that’s why I also want to show you that video, because this is a young guy from Bitcoin Ekasi. Bitcoin Ekasi is a project in Mossel Bay in South Africa in a township where they started a circular economy. So people are earning Bitcoin there and they go to the township where they live and they spend it there. So they onboarded merchants. And this young guy was one of the kids in the surf school where the whole movement and project started. So I want to show you what he says. I hope it’s loud enough.
Video Transcript:
Hello, nice to meet you. Slooh told me that you were the one who set up the Lightning node. Yes. Is that true? True. Can you show me that one? In there. This one? And that’s now a Lightning node? A full node. It’s a full node. What is on there? You are using? A BTC Pay Server. Mhm. And how did you learn all of that? We were doing online meetups with Open Arms. Ah, okay, that’s super great. And how long did you have to learn to know how to do it? Approximately, I think it was five to six months. Uh-huh. Yeah. But you are really interested in it, hey? Very much. So much. Is this going to be your job in the future? Maybe, I think so, yeah. Do you like it? Yeah, I like it so much. Computer science, everything in computers. I love it. Super! What are your goals? I mean, you are also using Bitcoin yourself?
That’s just to, you can find that also on YouTube in a couple of days. We will also put up his Lightning address. So if anyone wants, please send him a little bit. So that’s Bongani.
Opportunities for Bitcoin Developers
So what are the opportunities for Bitcoin devs actually? Because of course you also need to earn some money to be able to proceed. So first, there’s a company or an organization called BTrust. It’s especially set up for African developers who want to learn more about Bitcoin and want to become Bitcoin developers or Lightning developers. As you see, there is also the opportunity to get grants from them. So you basically get paid in Bitcoin for learning. And that’s a great opportunity because these people most probably always will get jobs also from abroad to be Bitcoin developers.
Then there is an organization called OpenSats. You see on their website projects that they have supported. They have a general fund for open source developers. And they also offer grants so you can apply there. You say you have open soft. It’s also, everything must be open source. So what you develop, you can write a grant application. It’s especially important that you show proof of work. So you need something on GitHub, for instance, or some sort of documentation of the work that you have already done in the Bitcoin space. So it doesn’t make any sense to apply right now out of nothing if you have nothing to show. But it’s a great opportunity, I think, for developers.
Bitcoin’s Value Proposition
So Bitcoin gives us opportunities. And if it’s just demonstrating which opportunities, I have here a chart of what the current in each year, basically, the current modern version of an iPhone, which price it had or what it cost in Bitcoin, in Bitcoin. Like the iPhone 4S started in 2011. It was 162 Bitcoin. And now the iPhone 15 is 0.031 Bitcoin. So you see it’s the other way around. Things don’t get more expensive. They seem to get more affordable because the value of Bitcoin goes up. Also, we said before it’s resistant. There’s no inflation. You have your ownership. And also you gain privacy.
But you only have ownership of Bitcoin if you do self-custody. So most of the people are actually, most like 99% of the global population is a pre-coiner, basically. So they are not yet in Bitcoin. They have bank accounts if they even have a bank account. And then the next step is when you buy on Yellowcard, when you buy on Binance and you use your Binance wallet or your Yellowcard wallet, you have Bitcoin. I mean, not really because it’s like a bank account and you’re depending on those counterparties. And only with self-custody, we always say it’s your keys, your coins, not your keys, not your coins. And that’s the level where we actually want to bring everyone.
Running Your Own Node
And the developers, we would like to bring to the level of be your own bank. And that is when you run your own Bitcoin node. Because then you and your node implementation, the software on your computer, is validating all the transactions worldwide and no one can cheat on you. Because if I have self-custody and I own my Bitcoin, I still need to look up other Bitcoin nodes if my transaction is really going through. So they could cheat with like showing me something else. And if you run your node, no one can do that.
Bitcoin Governance and Hard Forks
And you know, in software, especially in Bitcoin, the governance, since it’s open software and anyone can contribute, it’s a little bit not so easy, let’s say that way. When you have a centralized company like Ripple, for instance, it might be easier or Solana, it’s definitely very easy to change the code. In Bitcoin, not so much, but still the properties of Bitcoin like unsensorability, for instance, or the 21 million limit, they are not a God given. They could be changed. Because in Bitcoin, changes in the software happen in a so-called software fork or a hard fork. A soft fork is when someone uses the same code, but adds something to it and the software is still backwards compatible. A hard fork is when the other, the original version, let’s say, of the software, is not backwards compatible. So it’s a bigger change.
And for instance, what could happen in theory is that the 21 million limit is changed because a, let’s say, very, very big, very, very rich, very, very influential entity like the US government wants to change that. And they have a strategic Bitcoin reserve that everyone is saying, yeah, and I say, eh, eh. Because they can try to influence the code. They can put open source developers in jail and put others there. I want you just to know how important that is for the principles that are behind Bitcoin because it’s not only the 21 million limit. There are forces who say we don’t need privacy. It’s better for businesses when there’s no privacy. But we in Bitcoin who believe in the values of privacy and inclusion and openness, we don’t want that to change because then it’s not the Bitcoin anymore that I signed up for, in a way, you know. So the rules are written in the code and code can be changed.
Importance of Self-Custody
So why is self custody so important? So the Bitcoin blockchain has consensus rules and all transactions must be verified against these consensus rules. And one of that rules is the 21 million limit. If someone wants to change that to, let’s say, 42 million and the Bitcoin developers say, no, I’m not interested in that. We don’t want that. People don’t want that. Then someone could go and say, OK, I’m copying the Bitcoin software now. I’m copying the ledger with all the transactions in there and I start a new chain. Let’s say I call it, I don’t know, Bitcoin 42.
This is actually what happened in 2017 with the last hard fork in Bitcoin when someone created Bitcoin Cash. And from that Bitcoin SV was created. They believed that a bigger block size is better for Bitcoin. But the other people said, no, we don’t want to have bigger blocks because people who have not so good internet are being disadvantaged by that. They can’t be a part of the Bitcoin network anymore and we don’t want that. And what happened with that hard fork? Well, the price of Bitcoin fell and up until today, no one is really interested in Bitcoin Cash anymore.
But so you copy all the stuff, you have a new chain and you say from this time on, the consensus is Bitcoin will issue 42 million Bitcoin. So what happens next? Well, when you run a full note, when you run the Bitcoin software on your computer, you are part of the system that enforces the rules. And you have the power to say, I want to follow the 21 million chain or you say, I want to follow the 42 million chain. And this is a signal to the market that maybe more people prefer first or second version.
So it’s important to run a note. Also, when you self-custody your coins, when you own your coins, you are free to move it or to leave it on the original chain. So if a change happens that you don’t like, you can basically vote with your keys and say, no, I’m staying on the old chain. And if you custody your Bitcoin, like if you use Wallet of Satoshi or Binance, Yellow Card, Kraken, whatever, you are powerless. You have no power in that decision. The company is doing that for you. So maybe you don’t want that. So I don’t want it.
Bitcoin’s Unique Value
So Bitcoin can be co-opted, could be, by people who don’t care about the Cypherpunk principles. They don’t care about people’s privacy, don’t care about human rights or about fairness because that’s what I feel is the unique selling proposition of Bitcoin. That’s what differentiates it from all the other altcoins that I call casino coins where you trade with. Other people call it cheat coins, but I feel that’s a derogatory word and I don’t want to say that, but it’s casino. It’s a game if you use those.
Bitcoin Mining and Censorship
So another reason why Bitcoin’s uncensorability is not a given is Bitcoin mining. Bitcoin mining, in recent years, a lot of companies in the US, big mining corporations started out. They need to fulfill the regulations of the United States. And if the United States government says, we don’t like this person, we don’t like his transactions because he is a terrorist or whatever, then they could go to the miners and say, censor this transaction. And the miners who are regulated in the US will most potentially fulfill this request because if they don’t, they are going to jail.
That’s why it’s so important that we run nodes, that we run small solo miners at home and things like that. So we need to be active because I believe Bitcoin is a once in a lifetime chance to a fair, accessible financial system that doesn’t discriminate. And self-custody, running nodes and home mining are the backbone for us. So we run these, it’s a grassroots movement, so we have to do something for it if we want to have this Bitcoin also in the future and not taken over by the companies and corporations and governments again. Because we are here to exactly have an alternative. Bitcoin is the alternative and when they overtake, then the game is over and we have no alternative anymore.
Scaling Bitcoin with Lightning Network
So let’s talk a little bit about the possibilities of scaling Bitcoin and different payment systems. Because the Bitcoin blockchain can mine and verify and work on about 4,000 transactions maximum in one of those 10-minute blocks. That means it’s 576,000 transactions per day approximately. That means for 8 billion people, if everyone wanted to use Bitcoin in a self-custodial way and use the Bitcoin blockchain, then that doesn’t work. Because these are many, many more transactions that are needed.
And that’s the reason why a couple of years ago, Bitcoin developers invented the Lightning Network. So when you have the blocks which are chained together as you saw before, the Lightning Network is a so-called Layer 2 network, meaning it’s on top of the Bitcoin blockchain in a way and you have payment channels between nodes. So you have an opening transaction from the Bitcoin blockchain with a Lightning invoice into a Lightning node in that sense. And then if you set up your own Lightning node, you also have a node and can send and receive payments.
So there are thousands of payment channels between nodes that are moving Bitcoin in their payment channels. And payments there are much faster. You can use micro transactions which you can’t do on the Bitcoin blockchain because of the transaction fees. And you can also self-custody your Lightning Bitcoin. So either you run a node or use a wallet that allows you to self-custody that. And you also have more privacy if you use the Lightning network instead of using the open blockchain where everyone can look up your Bitcoin address.
Liquid Network and Sidechains
Then there’s something called the Liquid Network. It’s basically a side chain of Bitcoin. What’s a side chain? It’s also a blockchain but it’s its own blockchain. You can basically use Bitcoin like Satoshis. It doesn’t have to be a complete Bitcoin. It can be however much you like. You can use it, you take it and swap it into Lightning. So from BTC, the new unit is L-BTC. But L-BTC on the liquid network always has the same value as your Bitcoin. So it’s the same value expressed in Kwacha or in USD. It’s just on another blockchain.
The thing with liquid is you have shorter propagation time. So you have shorter time in between the blocks. It’s one minute or two. I think it’s one. And you also can self-custody that. So your transaction fees will be lower than on Bitcoin itself. And you can also swap back again. The only downside which I feel a lot of people, a lot of purists and maximalists say, you’re not allowed to use it. It’s not Bitcoin. There’s a federation that’s running the liquid blockchain. That is true. So it’s not fully self-custodial as Bitcoin. But the federation has, I think, 20 different companies all over the world now. And I don’t think that they can shut down or change anything on liquid. So I trust liquid, but I wouldn’t use it for my life savings.
So it’s absolutely better than fiat. And the thing with liquid is also you can use it to do Lightning payments, although it’s liquid. But it has fixed fees. So that’s a little bit easier then. And also it allows the issuance of other tokens. So you can, for instance, swap your liquid Bitcoin into Tether, into USDT. I assume all of you have heard of USDT. It runs on several blockchains like Throne, I don’t know, Solana, Ethereum, wherever, everywhere. And you can also run it on Liquid. And for you as a developer, it might be interesting. You could also issue a token for a software project, let’s say a crowdfunding tool. Then you could use Liquid and your own assets on that.
eCash and Privacy
And then there’s something fairly new. I mean, eCash, maybe some of you saw it before on the first on the history slide. ECash is something that is existing already since 30, 40 years, I believe. But now we also have eCash on Bitcoin. So what you’re having is basically the Bitcoin blockchain. On top of that, you have the Lightning Network. And from the Lightning Network, you can pay Bitcoin into a mint. And then issue eCash tokens, which are totally private. Transaction fees are almost zero, I think, if they are not zero. And that’s also an opportunity to basically scale the use of Bitcoin payments in a very private way to very low or at no cost.
But you have to trust the mint. It’s a centralized exchange of money, basically. So if the mint says, I gave you tokens or eCash, sorry, I can’t give you back your Bitcoin, then you have a problem. So it’s very much trust-based. But people are starting to use it more and more. Emmanuel already mentioned that before.
Wallet Recommendations
So self-custody might be more expensive. But in the long run, I rather pay for my custody and have my money secured than being a Wallet of Satoshi users. And suddenly, we will not serve US customers going forward. This happened because of the regulations in the US that say companies who do custody for others are being totally regulated now. They need to tell us all transactions that are happening in the names of the people and so on. And I mean, it’s honorable from the wallet of Satoshi that they said we are not going to do that for the US. So it’s still available here, but you never know what’s happening to a centralized company.
So that’s why I say, even if you use Wallet of Satoshi, be aware of that. Stay updated. Look what’s happening. Or even better, move your funds into another self-custody wallet. And yes, sometimes the fees, the concept of fees on Lightning is very confusing. And sometimes if you self-custody on Lightning, the fees can come very high because you need to open a channel or your software needs to open that. That’s why I recommend if you want to start using the Lightning Network or Bitcoin with a Lightning wallet, the Aqua wallet is very, very easy to use. Or there is a web wallet called Coinos.
Aqua wallet is self-custody. Coinos is custodial, but Coinos also even gives you a POS system. So if you have a small coffee shop or something, you can immediately receive Bitcoin. And it also allows to use eCash. So my strategy, or if you don’t have enough funds to open a self-custody Lightning wallet, first stack around 100,000 Satoshis in your Coinos or wallet of Satoshi wallet, then open a Phoenix wallet, put the money in there, then take 80,000 out again, you will understand that when you understand payment channels. So that you have a liquidity.
So then you have a channel in Phoenix that has 80,000 Sats free to receive and 20,000 to spend. Because a payment channel is like a pipe with water. When it’s full, you can’t get anything in. You can only get something out. When it’s half full, you can get half in and half out. And that’s the concept of payment channels.
Coinos and Nostr Integration
So that’s Coinos. And by the way, I will give you the link then to these slides with all the resources because there are a lot of resources coming now. So as I said before, that’s an easy to use web-based wallet. You can use it also on your phone. It’s called Coinos.io. And it has something that others don’t have. You can sign in with your Nostr keys. Who has heard of Nostr? You? Yeah, good.
Nostr is a new decentralized protocol, internet protocol. It’s at the moment mainly used for Nostr clients as social media clients. It’s also decentralized. So it’s if Instagram or Twitter are banning you, you can’t get your data back. And they use your data to earn money with it. But on Nostr, that’s not possible. And Nostr has the same concept like Bitcoin with public and private keys. So you really own your data with your private key there.
And there are more and more interactions between Nostr and eCache and Lightning. So on Nostr, you can immediately, they call it zap, send a zap and tip someone, which is a great tool because you can be here in Zambia. You are making any kind of Bitcoin content or other content that people like and everyone from the US or Europe or whatever can tip you immediately over Nostra. And no one can censor that or take it away.
Then we have Aqua, which can do Bitcoin on-chain, yeah, can do Liquid, can do USDT on Liquid, and also send and receive Lightning payments. Then the Lightning wallet, I have a video on YouTube that shows you how to set it up. And there are more information videos on Lightning on my YouTube channel. Here are the links for them for home.
Developer Resources
And now let’s go to the dev resources. And I selected those especially for people who are new to Bitcoin or Lightning development. So one of the best, I would say, really a book that you should read when you want to learn about Bitcoin, how are transactions made, what does the software do or not do is mastering Bitcoin by Andreas Antonopoulos. And you don’t have to buy it. Here’s the URL to read it online.
Then Btrust Builders, I told you before about B-trust. They now have a website called pathways.btrust.tech. And what they are doing, they have online courses, for instance, for mastering Bitcoin, for Rust, Bitcoin, Cli, or how do you say that, CLI, and things like that. And so they take you step by step through these resources.
Then here’s a video by BTC Sessions, where he explains how you can set up a Bitcoin node on your computer. Then I was speaking about BTC Pay Server before. That’s a tool with which you can immediately receive Bitcoin and Lightning on your nodes. So you need to run a Bitcoin node. That’s why I showed it before. But as soon as you set up that, you can receive Bitcoin on your website through BTC Pay. You can also integrate it. It has plugins for WordPress, for instance.
So here I have a few links. As I said, you can download the PDF later. For getting started, there’s a workshop online that you can watch a YouTube video about the details. Then there’s a developer documentation for it. And then additionally, here are the links for BTC Pay Server docs for developers.
Lightning Network Development
And then Lightning Network. I know that for devs who begin with Bitcoin, it’s easier to start with the Lightning Network. You will be able to be <er and have a first running app on Lightning than on Bitcoin. It’s easier. There are more tools for Lightning development. Also, the standard book for the Lightning Network is also from Andreas Antonopoulos and others. It’s called Mastering the Lightning Network. And it also goes into detail of how Lightning works and how you can develop on it.
Then we have a database of documents by Lightning Engineering. They have their own implementation of Lightning, but a very good overview here on this site. Then a great, great tool to run your first Lightning node without having to implementing all of it yourself, which is actually complicated and time consuming. But of course, I would like you to learn it and run your own node because Alby offers a hosted node for you, which is a great start.
With Bitcoin for fairness, we are also running one of the Alby nodes. And what it gives you is first, easy to use, and you don’t need to set anything up. You just need to sign up for it. It’s a self-custodial Lightning wallet that’s running on its own node. You have browser extensions for it. And as soon as you have set up your own node, you can create subaccounts, like for instance, for communities. Let’s say Bitcoin Zambia. It could be an idea to run a node for the Lusaka community, for instance. And then people can use Alby Go, which is a wallet that is basically running on the node of the community.
So anyone in the community can then download the wallet as long as there’s a connection to Bitcoin Zambia and they ask and say, hey, can I have a wallet? So you have basically community custody through that. And not like Wallet of Satoshi totally depending on a company you don’t know. And they also have extensive developer resources.
Hackathon and Tools
Then there’s a tool and I’m having these on these resources here because I think you might need it for the hackathon on Sunday. We’re doing a hackathon on Sunday and I invite all of you to come because we want to build solutions for Zambia. And that’s definitely a tool that we can use to simulate scenarios and run a Lightning node easily without the need to really run a node. Then that might be interesting for you.
A lot of people also say Bitcoin and Lightning are basically the future of payment for AI agents. So this is a tool that you can use to pay your agent that you’re building with Lightning. And then another list of tutorials for Lightning devs. Yeah, I think if you start with those and you’re really interested in it, you will find your way to find the next videos and things like that.
Community Building
Yeah. And then since in this and Emmanuel organized with Bitcoin for Fairness organized that great event today, I suggest you after the hackathon, if you like working with each other and exchanging developer information about Bitcoin, why don’t you found BitDev Zambia or BitDev’s Lusaka because there’s a tradition there in many, many cities all over the world. There are these BitDevelopers meetups. They are called Socratic Seminar. Maybe you look into that.
There’s for instance, BitDevs Nairobi. They meet every month. We were I was a guest in November in Nairobi. And yeah, they’re speaking about privacy, about new developments. And you know, like one of you find something interesting, you’re presenting it to the others, you discuss solutions and things like that. I feel it’s always easier in a community than alone.
Crack the Orange Program
Okay, so I would like also to intensely invite you to do the correct the orange online course. Because I feel it’s something that every developer can start with, even before going into mastering Bitcoin or mastering the Lightning network, because it’s about the basics of Bitcoin, the basic fundamentals. And it’s an online course where we give out scholarships for people like you who are really interested in learning more.
And so if you want to sign up, you can do that now by sending an email to support at cracktheorange.com. You just sent the email you write in the subject application for CTO. And Martina is receiving those. And then she’s sending you a link to an application form. So you don’t need to write anything in the email. But then in the form, we ask you a couple of questions. And after that, we’re going to send you the voucher to start the course.
And it’s basically it’s a one year program. So you can do it at your own speed, at your own pace, you can go back and forth. And we included questions. So after each biggest chapter, we have some questions so that you see, have you learned anything or not? And, and by those questions, we also at the end of the course, when you really through you get first a complete a certificate of completion. And secondly, we will look at your results, the test results. And for each quiz where you have more than 80% correct answers, we’ll send you 1500 Satoshi’s. So the best students can earn a maximum of 15,000 Satoshi’s.
Yeah, that’s that. If you sign up for the course, you will be also receiving the newsletter. If you don’t want the course, but only the newsletter, you can also sign up here.
Book and Closing
Okay, and then last but not least, I wrote a book about Bitcoin, it’s called (L)earn Bitcoin. And I have the feeling that we might be able to print it here in Lusaka. It’s available then for you here. I don’t know when but Desa, what do you think? What, let me say the other way. The as soon as you sign up for that course, you get the PDF of the book for free. So that’s the first possibility to read it. There will be some hard copies circulating that you can some people love to read a hard copy. And so that’s that.
Q&A
Okay, questions. Any questions so far? What was it? Was too much, I assume? Yeah.
I recommend earning Bitcoin. But if you don’t find someone who would say, Okay, I have a service for you and I pay you in Bitcoin, I would use one of the… either Vexl, Vexl is basically an app where you can find a partner to exchange Kwacha to Bitcoin or the other way around. Then there is a platform called RoboSat. Then hodlhodl. Bisq is very interesting. But you also need to download it. Actually, it’s here at the bottom Vexl.
But actually, to begin, I would look and try to find people in the community. Maybe someone has Bitcoin and needs Kwacha. Then you can exchange it peer to peer. And that’s the best way privately actually to use Bitcoin. I encourage you also to have this peer group of trusted, trusted persons who you can meet and exchange with.
And that would be an idea for the hackathon on Sunday. Maybe some of you can build a solution or the start of a solution to be able to use Bitcoin to pay in Airtel or MTN. But of course, that doesn’t solve your problem of getting Bitcoin.
Bitcoin needs scaling solutions. So the blockchain itself won’t be able to handle all transactions if one day 90% of the global population use Bitcoin. And also the Lightning network might not be able to solve that problem. And that’s why there will be other layer twos and layer threes. Like I would say eCash is layer three. And with different upsides and downsides. And it’s a jungle at the moment. And I think it’s getting worse over time with also then other companies coming in.
I mean, Strike is at least philosophically, Jack Maller’s is at least philosophically a cypherpunk. So but we will see how that plays out. And I actually I can’t speak to that to be honest. But what I want to show you, they are not yet really there. But it’s coming I think this year. It’s basically a chat app like WhatsApp, but very private, very secure, in which you can have community have a community and community custody of your Bitcoin.
And you can within the app, you can send and receive Bitcoin, Lightning Bitcoin, and which is then eCash. And you can also have stable sats. So you can basically use the Bitcoin and convert it in a way to a USDT USD, the nominated Bitcoin value. And then you have the USD value of it in your wallet. So it’s not I know, but it’s very easy to use if you want. If you see it, you don’t need to know all of this. This is just I explain it to you.
