#61 - Matt Odell, LNM fam & Lightning friends
🧢 Catch up with Matt Odell
"Good morning, stay humble, and stack sats" - if you're a Bitcoin enthusiast, chances are you've heard this daily mantra before. These words are shared each day by one of the most prominent and respected figures in the Bitcoin community - the one and only Matt Odell.
Matt is not only a fierce advocate for the use of technology to promote and maintain individual freedom, but he's also a leading voice in the Bitcoin space. He's the host of Citadel Dispatch, an interactive live show that explores the intersection of Bitcoin and freedom tech. He's also the co-host of Rabbit Hole Recap, a weekly podcast with Marty Bent that dives deep into the latest Bitcoin news and developments.
In addition to his media work, Matt has co-founded several projects in the Bitcoin space, including BitcoinTV, Open Sats, Bitcoin Park, Bitcoin Dev List and Final Message. He's also a partner at Ten31, a leading Bitcoin-focused VC fund that invests in the most promising Bitcoin native companies. On top of that, Matt advises several companies in the space, including Bitcoin Magazine, BottlePay, Hoseki, Pleblab, BitHyve, Swan, among others.
Despite all of these commitments, Matt always finds time to share his thoughts and insights with the community. As he puts it, "Life is short. Time is scarce. Use it wisely." We're honored that he's taken some of his precious time to answer our questions, and we can't wait to share his insights with our readers.
Overall, Matt Odell is a true Bitcoin Renaissance man, with a wealth of knowledge and experience in all aspects of the space. His commitment to individual freedom and his passion for Bitcoin make him an ideal ambassador for the technology, and we're grateful to have him as a guest on our newsletter.
Hey Matt, how did you fall into the Bitcoin rabbit hole?
Matt Odell: 2008, financial collapse showed me there were no “adults in the room” - everyone pretends they know what they are doing and how everything works but most are clueless and just follow the status quo. 2011, Black Friday, the US government went after poker websites through their payment providers, showing that they were an easy centralized path for censorship. 2013, Snowden leaks showed me we could not trust proprietary tech products and the open source movement was the only real way forward.
Discovered bitcoin, been obsessed ever since, started with trying to figure out ways it couldn’t work, as I went down that rabbit hole my conviction grew stronger.
What makes you most bullish about Bitcoin?
Matt Odell: Our incredibly growing community of open source contributors. Individuals standing up around the world and building projects that empower everyone, often without any real compensation. This mission would fail without them. Grateful and inspired every day. Bullish on bitcoiners.
You are co-founder, advisor and investor in several Bitcoin companies. Which advice would you give to people who want to build Bitcoin-native projects?
Matt Odell: It is incredibly difficult. The easy path is to stay in the fiat world and convert your pay into bitcoin but that is way less fulfilling. If you do decide to take the risk and work on bitcoin full time do not follow the crowd. If someone else is already doing something well, help them succeed. Identify pain points, areas where there is no focus, where there is a need that nobody else is filling. We need more people to stand up and do the hard tasks. Most of my work involves things that I would rather someone else did, but nobody stood up, so I do it. It can be incredibly fulfilling contributing to this mission, if we do not stand up and take the lead our children and their children may live in a much darker world - it is up to us to make sure that is not the case.
No matter how much time I dedicate to bitcoin I remain struck with the feeling I should be doing more. Do not let imposter syndrome hold you back. We all feel it. Just do your best. It helps. Everything helps. It really does.
In terms of technical development, what do you find most exciting about the future of Bitcoin and Lightning?
Matt Odell: We need better privacy tools.
For privacy tools to actually be adopted they need to be easy to use and convenient.
If tools require podcasts, youtube, or books to use effectively they will not be used much. Fortunately progress over the last few years has been incredible and I expect that trend to continue. Personally, I am most excited about the fedimint open source protocol and the promise it could bring of easy to use, convenient, and private bitcoin wallets. The main tradeoff of fedimint is that it is a custodial option but trust is reduced through the use of multi sig custodians, which reduces rugpull risk compared to traditional custodians, and chaumian ecash, which provides privacy from the custodian. Fedimints will not and should not replace fully sovereign tools, we need those to continue to be built out in parallel, but they could significantly improve the status quo of bitcoin adoption which has largely been custodial.
I am also incredibly optimistic about nostr, while not exclusively a bitcoin project it promises to be an open and censorship resistant communication protocol.
Together, bitcoin and nostr are incredibly complementary freedom tech tools: censorship resistant, permissionless, robust, and interoperable - money and speech protected by code and incentives, not laws
Finally, it seems like we are in the “then they fight you” stage for Bitcoin in the US. Why do you think the push against Bitcoin is so intense right now and what can we expect for the coming months?
Matt Odell: Bitcoin and the greater open source movement represents a threat to those that control the centralized and corrupt institutions our society has been built on. No individual, government, or company controls bitcoin, by design. The movement empowers individuals, aligns incentives across society, and should reduce this corruption. Naturally the powers that be wish to stop that from happening and I expect that attacks to only increase from here. This was always going to be the case and why the bitcoin protocol has been built to withstand censorship and control.
Now, more than ever, it is important for us to build out tools that empower individuals, and have education ready for individuals as they realize the need to improve their own situations.
We must stand up. If not us, then who? If not now, then when?
⚔️ LNM Fam
🔥 We have achieved a record-breaking first quarter in 2023, with an all-time high in monthly trading volume at 1,850 BTC and a daily trading volume all-time high at 250 BTC! We have slso experienced an influx of high-volume traders, or “whales”, with the average monthly volume traded per account increasing threefold. Additionally, we saw a 308% increase in volume, a 336% surge in P&L, and a 17% rise in user numbers compared to the previous quarter. Thank you all! More details in our investor Arcario’s PR.
🛠️ And of course, we keep building cool stuff for you:
API Python package update with notifications and options trading
New Economic Calendar to help your trading strategies celebrated with memes
🎯 Our focus for Q2? Trading limit increases and trading fee discounts based on volume. Stay tuned!
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