Founder: Evan Kaloudis
Date Based: 2019, block 563345; integrated in 2023
Location of Headquarters: No HQ; absolutely distant
Quantity of Bitcoin Held in Treasury: Not disclosed
Variety of Staff: 2
Web site: https://zeusln.com/
Public or Non-public? Non-public
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 best to privately self custody your bitcoin in the USA, he argued, needed to be defended in any respect prices.
Kaloudis’ phrases reduce by way of the stress 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 just about to study extra about his plans for ZEUS — one of the dynamic Lightning wallets in the marketplace right this moment — 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 completely different from different Lightning Wallets?
Evan Kaloudis: Zeus actually would not wish to compromise.
We have seen a number of wallets that’ll make trade-offs for varied causes. We’ve seen wallets that wish 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 needs to allow you to make Bitcoin funds your means, whether or not it’s that you just’re simply beginning off and wish 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, for those who’re a extra seasoned veteran, and you’ve got a full node working at house. Possibly it is an Umbrel or Start9, or perhaps you are even working 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 help. We simply wish 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 companies for US prospects after which Wasabi Pockets shutting down its coinjoin service, do you’re 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 until the outlook on Bitcoin on this nation drastically modifications.
And regulators don’t know how the Lightning Community works. It may be interpreted in so many various methods. However they know once they wish to come down with the clamps, they’ve to return down robust.
That basically helps put stuff in perspective for us as builders and other people providing services. We nonetheless have a protracted option 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 value rising appears to have little to do with individuals adopting it as a medium of change.
Kaloudis: What’s the normal use case of Bitcoin proper now? It is simply individuals simply buying and selling it like a inventory or utilizing it as an entry software to gamble on shitcoins and meme cash this cycle. Folks do not [grasp] the expertise absolutely. In the meantime, the individuals up prime are seeing the writing on the wall and making an attempt to nip it within the bud whereas they will — medium of change is actually 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 learn from quantity go up solely would love nothing greater than if everybody who was entering into it have 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 change.
Corva: Is that this why within the newest iteration of ZEUS you place the node within the cellphone as a substitute of assuming that individuals 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 change?
Kaloudis: We actually bridged a spot for them by placing it within the cellphone and providing up principally all the identical performance {that a} distant consumer would have.
I believe ZEUS goes to essentially evolve fairly drastically, however our precedence and our two exhausting traces are self custody and no KYC.
I might quite both cease providing these Bitcoin cost channels in sure jurisdictions — we already need to adjust to like with OFAC — or shut the corporate down.
We have constructed such an ideal product that empowers so many individuals that even with out Olympus (a well-connected Lightning node that ZEUS runs) and our LSP companies, I am assured there’d be hundreds of individuals nonetheless utilizing the software program. And I am certain individuals would proceed to contribute to it at an open-source degree 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 abilities would possibly simply take into account 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 undoubtedly 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 go away markets preemptively.
Alternatively, for those who speak to people who find themselves creating 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 considered one of 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 are mounting, there’s nothing else they’d quite do. It is a moonshot, but when it succeeds, your complete world modifications. So, I believe there’s nonetheless going to be a number 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 in opposition to them? Do you assume it’s higher to go on the offensive verbally or to simply preserve your head down and work quietly?
Kaloudis: Man, it is simply so enjoyable whenever you come out with the bravado, you realize? And the Samourai guys constructed a complete 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 power, then please proceed the shit speaking. However for those who’re a public determine, it is not going to be smart to poke the bear or kick the hornet’s nest, as Satoshi mentioned.
We do want to start out considering a little bit extra critically. There are nonetheless a number of concessions we’re going to need to make within the battles which are occurring now. You could be strategic to win a struggle.
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 like?
Kaloudis: Nice query. On the self custodial entrance, there are a number of challenges. We’ve got individuals like Tremendous Testnet who’ve found out actually revolutionary methods to do issues self custodially with funds, like what we have accomplished with our ZEUS Lightning handle and stuff like this new hedgehog protocol.
The pre-funding situation nonetheless stays. It’s a tough problem that we’re making an attempt to deal with.
I finally assume that a number of protocol degree modifications need to 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 value retains going up, it turns into dearer, at the least in greenback phrases, to open your first channel and use ZEUS in a self-custodial means.
We wish to attempt to keep away from that shifting ahead, however it will take an increasing number of plebs pushing to say, “Hey, this ossification push is silly. It cripples Bitcoin.” And the Larry Finks, the Michael Saylor varieties we have 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 convey splicing to ZEUS?
Kaloudis: Splicing is [some]factor we rely on LND for. I would like to convey it in, however who is aware of? We in all probability might see within the core Lightning interfaces, too. It could in all probability be simpler to see that before in say the embedded node in Zeus. Extra so than what it permits customers [to do], it will actually profit us because the Lightning Service Supplier in lowering prices.
Corva: In what methods does ZEUS combine with Nostr?
Kaloudis: Zeus right this moment has two Nostr integrations.
We’ve got a contact ebook in Zeus in which you’ll be able to import all of your contacts from Nostr. This provides you an effective 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 aware of that within the US.
We additionally use Nostr to energy our self-custodial Lightning handle service, which is the primary of its variety on a cellular pockets powered by the good Tremendous Testnet ZapLocker spec and principally use Nostr keys to log out on the invoices that our server serves as much as customers. So, you probably have a appropriate ZapLocker pockets, you’ll be able to say, “Oh yeah, this bill hash, this obtained signed by Frank and I will press this button to ensure I am actually taking a look at Frank’s profile and that it is actually him who signed off on it.”
Corva: With all the improvements you convey 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’ve got to behave in good religion. We’ve got already put measures up that may stop dangerous actors from utilizing our system.
We will need to seemingly present regulators, if they arrive knocking on our door, that it is not only a free for all right here. And we now have knowledge that may assist us determine 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 for those who strive to try 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 exhausting traces, and our exhausting traces 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 the whole lot else goes, from particular person Lightning node operators to miners probably to self custody itself. And like I mentioned in my submit, 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 the USA, to face up.
