Founder: Evan Kaloudis
Date Based: 2019, block 563345; included in 2023
Location of Headquarters: No HQ; totally distant
Quantity of Bitcoin Held in Treasury: Not disclosed
Variety of Staff: 2
Web site: https://zeusln.com/
Public or Personal? Personal
On April 26, 2024, Evan Kaloudis drew a line within the sand.
Within the wake of the information of the Samourai Pockets builders getting arrested and Phoenix Pockets halting service to US prospects, he made it public that he was going to struggle like hell for self-custody Bitcoin and Lightning Community wallets just like the one he created, ZEUS, to live on.
https://t.co/n0ye9TcNYd pic.twitter.com/Me5ixLeBT0
— EVAN KALOUDIS (@evankaloudis) April 26, 2024
The fitting to privately self custody your bitcoin in america, he argued, needed to be defended in any respect prices.
Kaloudis’ phrases reduce by way of the strain within the Bitcoin house, particularly on X, the place the sensation of despair was palpable.
Per week and a half after Kaloudis made his deeply felt assertion, I caught up with him nearly to study extra about his plans for ZEUS — one of the vital dynamic Lightning wallets in the marketplace in the present day — as we transfer into an period the place the powers that be appear to need all bitcoin in a walled backyard and tied to customers’ identities.
A transcript of our dialog, edited for size and readability, follows beneath.
Frank Corva: What’s the mission of ZEUS and the way is it totally different from different Lightning Wallets?
Evan Kaloudis: Zeus actually does not prefer to compromise.
We have seen loads of wallets that’ll make trade-offs for varied causes. We’ve seen wallets that need to simply present the sharpest UX at the price of self-custody or privateness. We have seen wallets from Silicon Valley that shut you right into a walled backyard.
Zeus desires to allow you to make Bitcoin funds your means, whether or not it’s that you simply’re simply beginning off and need to spin up a full lightning node in your pocket [editor’s note: ZEUS enables you to run a Lightning node on your phone] or, if you happen to’re a extra seasoned veteran, and you’ve got a full node operating at house. Perhaps it is an Umbrel or Start9, or perhaps you are even operating one thing within the cloud with Voltage — you’ll be able to hook up with ZEUS with that, too.
There are a number of methods to attach. There are a number of backends we assist. We simply need to empower individuals to make Lightning funds as freely as doable, with as few intermediaries as doable and with as a lot privateness as doable.
Corva: Given the latest crackdown on the Samourai builders adopted by Phoenix stopping its providers for US prospects after which Wasabi Pockets shutting down its coinjoin service, do you are feeling prefer it’s inevitable that the authorities will goal ZEUS in some unspecified time in the future?
Kaloudis: I believe there is a actually good likelihood that down the road Zeus does get focused. It is nearly an inevitability except the outlook on Bitcoin on this nation drastically adjustments.
And regulators don’t know how the Lightning Community works. It may be interpreted in so many alternative methods. However they know after they need to come down with the clamps, they’ve to come back down robust.
That actually helps put stuff in perspective for us as builders and other people providing services. We nonetheless have a protracted solution to go regardless of the good strides that we have made within the final six or seven years.
Corva: It’s attention-grabbing how bitcoin’s worth rising appears to have little to do with individuals adopting it as a medium of alternate.
Kaloudis: What’s the common use case of Bitcoin proper now? It is simply individuals simply buying and selling it like a inventory or utilizing it as an entry device to gamble on shitcoins and meme cash this cycle. Individuals do not [grasp] the know-how totally. In the meantime, the individuals up high are seeing the writing on the wall and making an attempt to nip it within the bud whereas they’ll — medium of alternate is absolutely the biggest menace to them.
The Michael Saylors of the world, the Larry Finks of the world, the individuals providing up the ETFs who stand to profit from quantity go up solely would love nothing greater than if everybody who was entering into it had been neatly organized and accounted for, KYC and all, and if it actually did not take maintain as one thing individuals self custodied or used as a medium of alternate.
Corva: Is that this why within the newest iteration of ZEUS you set the node within the cellphone as an alternative of assuming that folks would run a node at house after which use ZEUS as a distant management of types? In different phrases, are you making an attempt to make it simpler for individuals to make use of bitcoin as a medium of alternate?
Kaloudis: We actually bridged a niche for them by placing it within the cellphone and providing up principally all the identical performance {that a} distant person would have.
I believe ZEUS goes to actually evolve fairly drastically, however our precedence and our two laborious strains are self custody and no KYC.
I’d reasonably both cease providing these Bitcoin cost channels in sure jurisdictions — we already must adjust to like with OFAC — or shut the corporate down.
We have constructed such an awesome product that empowers so many individuals that even with out Olympus (a well-connected Lightning node that ZEUS runs) and our LSP providers, I am assured there’d be 1000’s of individuals nonetheless utilizing the software program. And I am certain individuals would proceed to contribute to it at an open-source stage to maintain making it higher.
Corva: It’s disheartening to assume that somebody such as you would even take into consideration having to stroll away out of your firm. There aren’t many individuals on this house who can construct what you’ve constructed and this makes me assume the subsequent particular person together with your expertise may simply think about not even getting began as a founder on this house.
Kaloudis: With this crackdown, we’ve seen an actual chilling impact. It’s an actual house run for the opposing aspect, and there is positively potential for issues to snowball and for extra individuals to maneuver out of the market.
I actually do hope that my actions encourage others to face up and never self-police or depart markets preemptively.
However, if you happen to speak to people who find themselves growing the house or doing their very own startup, they already know that what they’re doing is loopy. They know that, “Hey, I can go work for one among these FAANG firms and make $200, $300 grand simply, and I make a fraction of that with a fraction of an opportunity of success if I am going and work on Bitcoin and attempt to begin my very own firm.”
However that’s the factor with Bitcoin builders — regardless of all of the challenges that lay forward and the pressures which can be mounting, there’s nothing else they’d reasonably do. This can be a moonshot, but when it succeeds, the whole world adjustments. So, I believe there’s nonetheless going to be loads of loopy devs.
Corva: Do you assume these builders can be a bit much less publicly antagonistic after seeing what occurred to the Samourai builders and the way prosecutors are utilizing the tweet during which they welcomed Russian oligarchs to make use of their service within the case towards them? Do you assume it’s higher to go on the offensive verbally or to only maintain your head down and work quietly?
Kaloudis: Man, it is simply so enjoyable if you come out with the bravado, ? And the Samourai guys constructed a whole model round it. They basically assembled a military of diehard followers and customers and that largely contributed to their success.
In case you are a nym and you’ve got the flexibility, then please proceed the shit speaking. However if you happen to’re a public determine, it isn’t going to be clever to poke the bear or kick the hornet’s nest, as Satoshi stated.
We do want to begin considering a bit of extra critically. There are nonetheless loads of concessions we’re going to must make within the battles which can be occurring now. You’ll want to be strategic to win a battle.
Corva: Let’s shift over to one thing extra optimistic — your plans for ZEUS — and let me ask you some questions that some plebs on Nostr and X requested me to ask you. Are you exploring methods for self-custodial customers to obtain funds with out initially having to fund a channel with Bitcoin and what would this appear to be?
Kaloudis: Nice query. On the self custodial entrance, there are loads of challenges. We now have individuals like Super Testnet who’ve discovered actually modern methods to do issues self custodially with funds, like what we have completed with our ZEUS Lightning deal with and stuff like this new hedgehog protocol.
The pre-funding problem nonetheless stays. It’s a tough problem that we’re making an attempt to handle.
I in the end assume that loads of protocol stage adjustments must occur to Bitcoin. These are the issues that we’re extra bullish on — the issues that also allow self custody. We’re actually bullish on covenants. We’re actually bullish on coin swimming pools and cost swimming pools. Stuff like Ark is fairly novel.
We do not actually need individuals to interrupt the financial institution to arrange cost channels. As Bitcoin’s worth retains going up, it turns into dearer, not less than in greenback phrases, to open your first channel and use ZEUS in a self-custodial means.
We need to attempt to keep away from that shifting ahead, however it will take increasingly plebs pushing to say, “Hey, this ossification push is silly. It cripples Bitcoin.” And the Larry Finks, the Michael Saylor sorts we had been speaking about earlier would love nothing greater than if the core code base and protocol simply stayed as is. Take into consideration who actually advantages if issues keep that means.
Let’s be open minded as we push ahead and let’s have a look at what different proposals come down the road, as a result of there’s much more we now have to do to scale.
Corva: When are you able to carry splicing to ZEUS?
Kaloudis: Splicing is [some]factor we rely on LND for. I would like to carry it in, however who is aware of? We in all probability might see within the core Lightning interfaces, too. It will in all probability be simpler to see that prior to in say the embedded node in Zeus. Extra so than what it permits customers [to do], it might actually profit us because the Lightning Service Supplier in lowering prices.
Corva: In what methods does ZEUS combine with Nostr?
Kaloudis: Zeus in the present day has two Nostr integrations.
We now have a contact ebook in Zeus in which you’ll import all of your contacts from Nostr. This provides you a good way to simply ship your funds to individuals you comply with. In that means, it is type of like a decentralized Money App or decentralized Venmo for funds for individuals acquainted with that within the US.
We additionally use Nostr to energy our self-custodial Lightning deal with service, which is the primary of its type on a cellular pockets powered by the good Tremendous Testnet ZapLocker spec and principally use Nostr keys to log off on the invoices that our server serves as much as customers. So, when you’ve got a suitable ZapLocker pockets, you’ll be able to say, “Oh yeah, this bill hash, this acquired signed by Frank and I will press this button to ensure I am actually Frank’s profile and that it is actually him who signed off on it.”
Corva: With all the improvements you carry to ZEUS, do you retain current rules in thoughts as you construct or do you simply construct and hope you’re not breaking any legal guidelines?
Kaloudis: We now have to behave in good religion. We now have already put measures up that may stop dangerous actors from utilizing our system.
We’ll must probably present regulators, if they arrive knocking on our door, that it isn’t only a free for all right here. And we now have information that may assist us establish and kick dangerous customers off our platform.
I am not going to say, “Hey, Russian oligarchs come use Olympus,” since you’re not going to get far if you happen to strive to do this. ZEUS is simply not conducive to that in any respect.
What ZEUS is conducive to is to have the ability to freely make your day-to-day funds.
What’s guiding us is our laborious strains, and our laborious strains are self custody and no KYC. We’re not making funds on behalf of customers. We’re simply empowering them to make these funds for themselves.
If we get labeled as a cash service enterprise, then all the pieces else goes, from particular person Lightning node operators to miners doubtlessly to self custody itself. And like I stated in my put up, that is the hill to die on — self custody.
The choice is simply too grim to even take into consideration and it will take some people, largely in america, to face up.