Cool, and a very good morning or good afternoon to everyone listening in. Depending on which part of the world you're listening in from the second of February 2024, UX research call number was it 34? Yes, it is 30 for the purpose of this call, it's actually a very special call. Because we have Colin from ETA volunteer. And we also have finalists. And I'd like you both to just you know, you guys really both connected with each other. And then I also connected with power loss and a separate event. So So yeah, if you guys would both like to introduce yourself, I think you both have. It's so nice to see you both coming together. And you know, it's a wallet has been around Bitcoin design community for a while. So I'd love to give this project a boost. And it's so nice that powers and you connected. So, Colin, if you want to introduce yourself, and then panelists as well, going.
Hey, everyone, I think I'm familiar with everyone on this call. And I also met Bogguss, a few days ago. So that's really, really good, but also seen him in different circles in Oslo at the Sheriff of conference, and a few other places as well. But I'm happy to be again, my name is Colin condo, I have been working on a toilet, it's open source video pencils, lightning wallet, mobile wallet. And if they get under the hood, I've also used extensively use the design, community and other resources as well. So I'm happy to be in a sense to see how this can could be a different kind of project and help them in some way or the other. So happy to be here once again.
Thanks, Colin. Hi, my name is Apollo's a marketer and I am also technology professional. I've worked on infrastructures, as assistant men and sis engineer for close to a decade recently transitioned into marketing, and now working closely with the Bitcoin innovation hub as an advisor as well as have volunteered to help launch their new platform, which we hope to talk about today.
Amazing. So my computer just I had way too many tabs open here before closing tabs at once. Okay, cool. Yeah, the purpose of this call is to is to really to help see if there's some synergy between what BGC hub would like to achieve as well as a wallet. Palace, we met an event at an event and Palace works with BTC Africa hub if I if I remember correctly. Do you want to maybe share a little bit about the hub and what it does and who works with?
Sure. So the Bitcoin innovation hub, the URL, like you were correct is BTC hub Africa. But the actual organization is the Bitcoin innovation hub. It was founded by metalness Stefanos, who's a human rights activist, who's worked very closely with Eritrean refugees for a couple of decades now, where vendors can then bring their products online and sell them to places all around the world, either b2b or b2c.
Perfect. I got kicked off when I'm back in. So okay, cool. So and we have colin has a wallet, which is has been built out completely using resources from the Bitcoin design community. And I guess the goal of the call would be to understand, you know, if there could be any synergy brought together in columns wallet, as well as using the wallet to possibly provide for this specific group of people, which which powers is working with? How was what would be and I'm just taking some notes over here, I made a whole bunch of questions before our call. So if I'm not looking, it's only because I'm taking notes. What would be the ideal outcome for you? In terms of collaborating on this project? What would you like to see? What would be the ideal scenario?
Thanks for that question. I guess from a technical perspective, it would be a way for us to connect a wallet to our BTC pay server where we are Start shops. So individuals who have shops or vendors who have shops on our platform would then be able to connect to a self custodial wallet. That so that would essentially be the technical goal there. And from I guess, a non technical perspective, again, as I mentioned earlier, having vendors accepting payment in Bitcoin and that Bitcoin format the wallet, the way they would do that would be through there to a wallet
how it has this, this group of people, I'm just gonna write this year, as this group of people ever used a Bitcoin wallet before, what what wallets are they using? or would this be completely new for them?
So some vendors have been trained and are using wallets currently. There were a total of I want to say 175 students, in the first couple cohorts at the Innovation Hub, this hub recently opened in June of 2023. And in terms of what wallets they're using
I would I would, I would need to confirm with Marilyn to find out exactly which wallets she's been training them on. And so let me get back to you with that answer. So I don't give you guys the wrong answer.
Carlos always you've been really close to this group. And trust just everyone, anyone feel free to dive in and ask questions. Before the call, I just create a list of questions to get a get a get more of an understanding. Part of what do you think is the biggest problem that that they face? And you know, this is going to be very direct question is, you know, they're currently using Wallet. So why would you specifically using external wallet be better for them versus using the current wallets that they are sort of using and playing around with it?
So you can you come back with that question you would like me to answer what exactly? Why the wallet?
Yeah. Why do you think as a wallet might be a solution for them? I mean, they are currently using currently using other wallets at the moment. What is it that you think about these wallets that are not specifically meeting their needs?
Yeah. So I think maybe we should to backtrack a little bit here in terms of what wallet or why they should use as a wallet versus another wallet? Yeah, I think I think the goal truly is to educate these users and given them a vocational skill. I think it matters not so much which wallet they use. I think there's an opportunity here to work with Colin, because personally Well, I to my Colin is from Uganda, Colin has built a wallet already we the idea originally was first to create our own wallet. And from there, we believe that the essential need would just be a wallet that has language, multiple language abilities. I know that a wallet does have that capacity to include any number of languages. So initially, that was the idea of working with Colin to create a wallet or use his wallet and have it be able to be translated into Swahili or Tigrinya, which is a common language with numbers at the Innovation Hub. But aside from that, maybe we should do more research with regards to one wallet versus the other wallet. But again, the main goal would be to give them trainings and then get them to using a wallet in general
polling I think that sounds good to us since that's your use for Healy your native language.
Yes or no, in some ways. Yes. I do know slightly, but it's not my native language. Yeah, so we don't take slightly in Uganda. Predominately, we mostly sample speaking sample don't. But yeah, it's widely spoken in Uganda as well.
Gotcha. So the biggest left it feels would be Translation of the actual wallet into the How would you say into their native language?
Yeah. So I mean, I think the challenge here would be the fact that I'm Bucha about the numbers that the Bitcoin innovation have yet how how the demographics look like. But I do know that it might help a tiny bit if you localize it the peripheral bypass using a normal working languages like Swahili and Tigrinya. Like, it would make sense at that point. But yeah, I mean, I feel like if you think about it, most wallets to take. And if you think about an obvious one, it's like saying alloy, they all have gender to the legs contribute towards the transmission of the wallet, same as blue wallet as well, which has no lightning currently, I do get the use case here being the fact that they want you to get lightning insert allow the users to use that BTC BTC pay server instance. Was that correct? All Correct. Yeah. So for very many reasons, I guess the main ways you could go about this, but it was clean memory, like cope with that process. Because I think what the whole idea for it was, it was initially to be like a foundation of basically anyone who wants to build wealth of their own. And the protection to the board needs to emerge as an innovation hub, means that it's a niche that you come up with, and you believe that also on your on your matrix of ideas that came from the last conference. It's, I would see how it being very modular and able to like change and, and be more that would actually hope that we should be led so innovation, my brother, so I think that I don't know, I'm not sure. But I do think maybe this might be helpful in some way.
Daniels asked a question here in the chat, Daniel, also you feel free to speak as well. But would you like me to read out your question or? Okay. Would you like to ask? Hello.
I was just muted because I had a very loud background here. Can you hear me? Yes. Yeah, no, I was just wondering about because I've been running, I've been running into this issue myself, when testing, you know, building self custodial wallets, with lightning, that it's great. When you're set up and got a channel that's got sufficient liquidity and stuff, then you know, payments are close to free. But before you reach that stage, it can be quite cumbersome and expensive. You know, I've had instances where opening and closing channels or getting ready basically can be costing in the order of five to $10. So I just wondered, you know, how would cost like that affect, you know, this population and these people you want to work with?
Yeah, if I could, I guess, take a stab at that. Opening a channel, as you guys know, is super expensive at this time, maybe cost more than $10. Even I don't know how feasible that is for vendors. As I mentioned, Dave, I know most people that we're working with innovation hub, may have already opened some channels. So we could see if how many of those exists, how many of them are vendors, and as Colin mentioned, give him those numbers and share those numbers with you all. And I can I can follow up with that information after the call. As I think as I mentioned, it would be a an important thing to know, at this point. Given the cost for opening a wallet, or opening an account or channel at this moment
Yeah, that's fair. To hear from people directly how it impacts them. No, I'm just curious generally, because I had been a little bit blind to this problem myself, you know, so Oh, yeah, likely liking fixes that feed problem. But you know, I'm also open minded like, could there be other solutions? Yeah, what's beyond this problem? How do we get how do we get past it or around it? So I'm really curious to learn from your what you find.
Yeah, and maybe just to jump in here and submit what the hell is saying. So custodial Lightning has a lot of pitfalls and very many things could go wrong in a healthy environment channels. There's so many channel closes and things happen here. have control. And the few also you expelling does that exist still within self custodial lightning, things are on offer and receive. And also just, again, unless you have been as LSPs, for example, like maybe the hub had their own LSP, it would make sense. But I would imagine, like, don't say that if you can map out different, we can think of, if you think about the problem, we can, like, come up with a solution for that, that might involve the wallet or not, but I think there'll be something to consider. If you can think about like, what, what is the actual issue, and I like the liquid, polo polo shirt any earlier, sometime during the week, there was a issue, they realized that they wanted to fix, I think coming from an angle, or this is a problem, and only a particular solution would would make sense.
I just to get a bit of understanding around the opening of channels, and the actual practical effect it would have on these people. You know, so let's imagine I'm a vendor, and I'm from Uganda, I have my own shop. And I'm selling I don't know, what kind of stuff do they sell powders? Is it mostly like fruit vegetables? Or is it like everything across the across the board?
It's it can be everything. One of the our biggest program right now. About 95 people is in the garment sector, I guess so handcrafted material. But if we were going to expand and work with all vendors, it could be anything across the board.
And then would they need to. So the lightning channel is open. I mean, to my knowledge in most lightning wallets, the lightning channel will be open at the beginning during the onboarding process to get the initial liquidity. And then after that, once the liquidity is there, they can continue using that channel. Is that correct? Or do I have that incorrect?
That's correct. That's correct. But but don't The only issue that exists is that the tool is open channel. And liquidity, the first way is easiest ways to use an LSP. And that's what technology that's predominately. And the other way, of course, would be to make an on chain transaction, which usually takes a while to confirm. So most boys think about the LSP route, it's a bit new, it's just in time liquidity, but it's pretty efficient and better UX overall. So yeah, that's, that's, that's, that's the idea
of one method is the LSP. And the other one artist in time channels.
If you use the LSB to open a channel, as soon as you're onboarding that, if you pay, you pay a small fee, really, but it does just in time, liquidity.
Yeah, I've been experimenting with that, in the last couple of weeks or months, I have some working now, but I mean, the fees are still the same, basically, for opening a channel and you're just you're just taking it off whatever you're receiving. So if you're receiving $15, you know, the whole opening and potential closing fee will be taken off. So it will still be the same amount 510, or whatever it might be. Yeah. In that way that you don't need to have, you know, bitcoins to start with, to pay for the fees, but the fees are still the same.
But maybe just to clarify, the fees are the same for the opening and closing of channels. But once the channel is opened, and the LSP connected to have good, good, good liquidity on its network, on all different routes, it may be cheaper, significantly cheaper to move the money around. So for example, if caught up to hot wallet channels to the LSP, which LSP is run by the mission hub, that would mean that you should have will be in charge of watching all these payments and or swapping channels and it will offer maybe every new channel, every new wallet onboarding every new user some liquidity to begin with $75 That's difference as to begin with and then maybe they could use that to to pay for things and then get experience with lightning. And then from there, have to just see how it all works all together. That would make some sense maybe? I think
so I'm just trying to think. I also from a research perspective, because Bowers obviously has built this relationship with this group of people who are now in the in the in the hub. So trying to think out loud in terms of some research questions that we can ask Because I guess the opening of the lightning channels and the fees is very relevant. But that's irrelevant, depending on your earning potential as, as a vendor, if I'm selling garments, and my garments are, I don't know, $50 apiece, then it still is quite impactful because it $10 will be a fifth of $50. But then if I'm selling potatoes, or apples and fruits, you know, $10 fee is not something that I would be more most inclined to. So, like some of the questions that are coming up in mind, in terms of the research questions, could be things like you would you would interview different vendors, and you would go all the way across the board, and one of the questions would be, do you currently have lightning channels which are open? What pushed you to open the lightning channel? And I think it would be very interesting to see if people who are in the lower income area, you know, that the material, the things that are selling are low area, if they indeed have channels open, and and how they felt about about opening that. And also very curious which wallet they're using will also be very, very interesting to know as well. So I'm just I don't know, I'm just thinking out loud in terms of in terms of questions that we could, we could, we could ask them.
I think I think the only way this also just at your point, I think would work is if the hub itself was in a sense, the one of the channels for these users. Because then they could control how much how big the channel actually is. And the hub could afford to look up there like that equality on chain. So the hub can afford to do all this, because it's the hub and will ensure that all the channels stay open with this with a wallet that you have on boarded. So if the hub was an LSP, of thoughts, that determines how much liquidity apostle pass even if you are a vendor that say if you sell tomatoes, if you sell, you know clothes or whatever, it doesn't really give you a large enough channel, say that maybe some say maybe $500. Big maybe. And that will allow you to basically do your trades. And basically, I mean, I would never if there's a customer of like, of trade going on, you buy from here, you take you go buy bread from here, then you go sell another comment you either to pay for a loan somewhere else over lightning, if there was a process in the community, that would make sense, because that means that there'll be the same channels to move money around themselves. So there's no need to actually have larger channels. It just makes sense that way. I think that's what will make sense. So the people are opening their own channels, they're opening channels to innovation hub, where that they are on maybe. So the large enough channels.
So if I understand correctly, the Bitcoin Innovation Hub would be the LSP.
Yeah, that's that's how this would make sense, in my opinion.
And how would that benefit them in terms of the fees, the lightning channel fees, I just I want to try to understand that.
Yeah, so because we're putting generally involves, in most cases, always actually looking up liquidity on chain. So if you want to open a channel that say, a million sets large, it means someone else to look up a liquidity, one chain. So that means look at the channel, you cannot be, you can't stand it. So only the hub in this case would have the capacity to do something like that. So the users themselves would have to open channels by paying a very small fee, maybe 1000 sets, and that gives them a channel on the hub. Because the hub is now usable in channels to the wallets themselves. So they don't pay, they don't pay much by now, because then the same community and all these in the same wallet and not embarrass each other. It means that their audience means for basically free of charge. And they didn't have to spend that much, by the way, another channel that big, because the hub would have those channels open and maintained. And it will lock up its own liquidity on chain, knowing that the money is floating within those channels, when they Yeah. That's how I see this working.
Tell us you're nodding your head. Is this something you maybe thought about? Or?
Yeah, so excuse me, because part of I'm learning as much in this process as well as pretty new to the Bitcoin space and lightning especially. But that, that there's sounds like there's great alignment there as part of the three steps for how we could onboard users. One is, you know, training them and gaining a vocational skill to then be them in this situation the way Collins described, utilizing the hub and working with the hub before eventually at some point if I correct me if I'm wrong. They wanted to have their own channels, which then they could do. But I guess my question would be does it if at some point they don't need the Uh, what would that look like in terms of fees costs for them? After they we've already on boarded and gone through these first two steps.
I mean, the hub is just another LSP. So if they just have a SIM, their lightning says to a different wallet. And that's, that's, that's, that's how they exit because the hub essentially owns the hub will close the tunnels with them. That means that the channels will be closed, whatever is on different parts of that channel. So yeah, everyone, everyone, I guess gets their Shin gets up. So it lands on the hub specifically? Not really,
I guess. Okay, so, right. So would they in the future? Would they need to rely on the hub? Also, do they need to close the channel with? Could they keep the channel and continue? Without the hub? Does that make sense? In
this case, because the hub would be the LSP in the hub would essentially be able to close channels from the user because they open those channels themselves. But of course, it's a it's a, it's a joint journey to closure. So that basically means that they could start the process of closing the channel with the hub. And we could also see how that could work in the UX flow of I want to, you know, close this and move my money elsewhere, we could figure out a way to make that process a bit easier. That's more localized, I guess.
So I'm going to continue to ask questions, when it comes to just in time access to this, these channels are liquidity to my the way I understood it is you don't have to pay all costs upfront, you can pay them later is that how that sort of works.
The the costs, which which cause
opening a channel,
they would have to pay the cost upfront, in this scenario that I'm talking about the hub would would take up a large chunk of the cost of the channel to their users, so that they're not having to spend a little money that they want, because the channel has to be as big as you want it to be. And the hub can open really big channels. And if they can do that on Monday and look it up on chain, that will be fantastic. And it's a really good way to incentivize this process. But if they have opened their own channels, it would be it will depend on the fee, or the time on change would depend on a bunch of things. If the fees like you know, like it has been recently the list you can actually pay is federal and so and that's before the the fee for channel opening and all that which would be expensive, really expensive. So the one way again, don't know since blocking is if the hub will take up the the being the LSP as a as a role and ensure channels stay open. And also closed channels on demand. Yeah, I think that's how this would work.
All right, I'm just diving in, in terms of, you know, so So let's imagine this scenario where the VTC hub is, because the LSP. And by acting as the LSP are helping to reduce the channel fees, and Paolo, please stop me if I if we're using you here in any way. How I think something that we would need to think about is how to gauge from this group of people? What is the amount in that percentage according to what they sell, that they would feel comfortable with paying for channel fees, you know? So this is like saying to someone like, hey, you know, you're going to you're going to a restaurant, for example, I'm just using that example. You're going to a restaurant and you're going to give a tip. What sort of tip Are you comfortable with eating at the restaurant? You know, you've had a meal of 20 euros, you're comfortable with two euros? Because I think that's quite a interesting question. Because it also shows how much responsibility BDD you have would be willing to take on in terms of acting as the LSP. So I'm just I don't know, I'm just thinking out loud in terms of in terms of questions. Yeah. So. Okay. Any other questions that are coming up? I mean, we have Daniel listening in and stop listening in and we do she as well, anything that's coming up in terms of questions or ideas, as we're talking?
Well, I was I was just thinking through what I think Colin was describing, and it sounded to me like a sort of model that lnd hub had with blue wallet. But I don't know that technical solution in depth, but if I'm correct, I think that is sort of a custodial model right like the hub pretty much has all the funds, right? It's not there's not a concept of the users actually holding their funds on their device, which might be fine. I'm just trying to clarify here. Yeah. So
so the way I think the difference here would be in the listing module has its drawbacks, and most of it is the fact that you do give away some of your privacy they do. If they open a channel to you, it means they, they have that vision on that, and they can just pass it on to you, basically. So that has its drawbacks. It's not, it doesn't mean that your money is my decision to use, it's essentially LSPs money. But what this does for you is it gives you I guess, the experience of self custody in the sense that you do able to move funds beyond just with LSP LSPs to the outside world. So they have a network, they have the pier with other LSP. So maybe, to get that at a Phoenix or other larger LSP network. So the whole point would be that this is your is your, your, your link to the outside world, and be able to lock them in for you, etcetera, all that however, the fact is, lightning that's fully not noncustodial might be really hard to, to work with, to be honest. It has a lot of issues that makes sense to actually have some, you have to be able to if you have to compromise in a few areas, I'd say for you to actually work in this in this way.
Yeah, that makes sense. And, you know, I'm not, I don't think this code should be for deciding a particular solution. It's just open questions and finding solutions, the sort of, you know, the landscape of potential solutions. And in that realm, I think it might be worth at least having on the table, you know, some of the other options out there like E cash and cash with adamant, you know, just at least to familiarize yourself with them, because they're there somewhere on that spectrum, as well as sort of not not completely self custodial, but they're also potentially not trusting just one, one node and one, one person. I mean, they're also very, very young, and sort of emerging. So yeah, just throwing that out there that it's worth kind of weighing up all the options and all the potential pros and cons, I guess.
Yeah, for Thor, I definitely agree with Daniel, I think it comes from also speaking with with these users, and then you know, in the back of our minds having the the options the solution space completely open in terms of what would be the best solution for them? Powerless? Are you familiar with E cash at all? Or I'm still learning about E cash myself. So I am not the one to give the explanation. But are you familiar with E cash?
Is that the one that Kelly has worked in presented on the last time we okay? No, I think I'm still learning much about it and cashew as well.
Daniel, would you like to give a quick rundown on Wi Fi caches? I'm not the expert.
Yeah, I'm not either. But I can give like a one paragraph explanation. So Ecash is a concept that is sort of almost like layer three, if you like, or, you know, it is still using Lightning. But yeah, it basically acts like you were describing that it acts, well. Then there are two implementations of Ecash, cashew, and phedi, which are two different protocols based on the same idea. It's possible that they will be interoperable in the future, but at the moment, they're not. And the main difference, I think, is that fairly and fairly mint, which is sort of a company building out this idea is that is based on the idea that like a community that trust each other sets up its own means together and they are sort of like all using that one, which is a bit like the l&d hub example we were giving before. So within that, mentor within that community, they basically pay no fees. And the the cashew one is, you know operating on the same principle, but instead of one community operating one mint, that sort of, you can, you can start your own meant. And then you can send and receive from other users on other means potentially. And you can decide yourself, which means you you sort of trust and you can sort of move your funds into that. So that's a very brief and probably not very simple description, but it does solve some of the problems that we were discussing that like end users don't have to pay to start using it, somebody has to set up the sort of central means. But after that, you're sort of good to go as a new end user, you can immediately receive money. And I think there, there is a wallet out there called E nuts, which is based on a cashew protocol, which you can test if you want, I was mad, I managed to receive money there from Cash App in the US to this. So it does, you know, you can you can receive lightning invoices and stuff. So you're sort of on the you're on the Bitcoin network. But with this intellectual
Thank you, we're just sharing all of the putting all of the options on the table, which I think is, is the good thing to do. I want to move slightly into now, let's say we are going to have conversations with these users with this with a few people. So that we can actually understand, you know, their feelings towards lightning channels, would that be something for them, you know, possibly the BBC have acting as an LSP, or possibly something more like the E cash route. So let's say we prepare a list of sort of 10 questions or five questions to sort of get this information, which we can then feed back into this project to try to understand their needs, try to understand, you know, what fee amounts they would be comfortable with, what sort of interactions would be more suitable to this community that they're living in? And that they're working and obviously, because there's, there's trust in that community between the members. And then they also have a sense of plus, I guess, with BTC, hub Africa as well. So those are all things to consider with whichever solution might be the best for them. Um, in terms of like interviewing these people, would we be interviewing them in their native language? I'm guessing it would be Swahili, with that be the language that they would obviously be speaking in if we if we were to interview them?
If that is a question for me. Okay. From our experience, I think it maybe depends on the vendor, but from what I found people are okay with just using English, but I could probably speak to that better than I can.
Sorry, I grew up in Uganda, when I'm raised. So in Kampala, everyone speaks fluent everyone, but people have fears of English and you know, if you think about, like all the branding, and where everything is, everything is scary in English. So I think it comes down to maybe how much deeper this is supposed to go like how I guess rural, the project would scale out to but if you're thinking about just in the city center, then I'd say I mean, everything is in English, the menus for even ussda in English. You can change the Lagonda if you want. But in most cases, English is pretty decent as well. I think it just goes back to scale. If come to Kenya, then people here speak Swahili all the time, everywhere you go. It's like mostly English, but they do speak English as well. They do prefer to speak Swahili. So Swahili is spoken everywhere you go. The similar Luganda is spoken in Moscow as in you in Uganda. So localization is good because it helps people who haven't. And this is goes back to literacy and all that sometimes it's a literacy issue. And that's very, very common. It's a big problem as well. So it goes back to that, but also, whilst you're on assemblies, actually is when people come to the hub and you know what language you speak and also, how Where do you understand out I think you can actually add other languages as well.
And I guess the other thing would be considering the refugee communities and they're on and others there that can translate to Tigrinya which is actually been needed. There are translators available for that. And she and others can definitely work with them to or with us to, to get those questions and translated and passed to them as well.
That was my question. Yeah,
well, that was a big issue, which advocate and considered, but these are mostly some of them will be refugees. So then in that case, I think it would be fair then to really consider the language thing that might be important, really important.
Yeah, I think, you know, just from a from a perspective of wanting to get full, complete honesty from people, when you're speaking with them, it obviously feels much more natural to speak in your own language. Or at least the language that you're the most comfortable speaking in, so that you can get the most full full fledged out answer. So it which is my next race, you know, and I think powers you already mentioned that, let's say we create a list of questions and this interview questions will really try to keep it short and sweet. With a particular goal of understanding, like what the problem space is, as well as what might be, you know, we want to go into the problem space so that we can understand what could be the solution space, specifically, with regards to the channels, the fees, the trust as well, I guess, would also be something that we've not really to establish, because if there's if that there with the BTC, hub, then the BTC have good access to LSP. If the trust is not there, and there's more trust within the community itself, then it would feel like maybe the E cashew, probably something that would be more would be something that they would more lean towards. So would they be people available on the ground to do these interviews? Like if we were if we if we just gave you like a PDF? Or like, here's the questions. Could we have like people on the ground? Who would just, you know, grab 10 people and absolutely, okay, perfect. Okay, cool. That sounds good. Let's see, I had, do I have any more other questions here? Yeah, um, do you have any idea? I know this is going a little bit off the you know, I know policy, you're not actually possibly as much on the ground there. But do you have any idea what kind of mobile phones these people have they have access to? Okay, Daniel says he needs to run. He looks forward to learning more. Thanks for being here, Daniel.
Do you know any idea, you know, are they are they? Are they using sort of theme or very standard phone which is not sure. You know, we hear in in in in Europe we have access to and in the US we have access to the you know, the more the top of the range phones, I definitely appreciate that that's not the case in every single country in the world. I know my mother is 68, she still uses a very basic phone. Still learning how to use learning how to use the more advanced phones that we have now. So yeah, if you if you have any idea what kind of phones they use, I think that if you don't it's also fine. But I think that would also be something that would be quite relevant in terms of whatever solution we provide would be the festival for them.
Oh, no. Dropped off. Yeah, he did. He did. Yeah. I mean, was all kinds of phones. Honestly, I pass my phones, we'll have a feature phones, there's really no. I think we'll be okay with smartphones. Honestly. Chef ones that that's very common. But I think in the city, most people have smartphone, but also I think Paulo can speak to the refugees as well. That's where I really don't have any, I wouldn't know what the solution might be to be honest, I can share my border.
Sorry, I'm still here. I was going to some some documents that I was trying to reference to see if they shared any mobile device type. I can get that answered for you. And I can work with Matt on To find out specifically about the refugee community. But I think to call this point, I think a lot of people that saw there had smartphones, but yeah, it definitely makes sense. And how detailed Do you want it to be? Do you just need to know if they're using a smartphone or not essentially?
Yeah, I mean, I think it would be interesting to know off the bat, you know, what, what, in general are types of phones they have access to because it's a very practical, you know, question because, you know, if it's if it's predominantly non smartphones, then you know, a fully fledged, you know, Bitcoin ln wallet is just not going to be a very practical solution for them. It's like, it's like saying, Go ride a horse and you don't give someone a horse, you know? And I, the other the sort of, so it seems that we do have access to past research there. I've been done follow us or like, you guys like been collecting some some past research as well. And okay. Yeah,
again, I guess I just wanted to confirm is it more so wanting to understand smartphone or not? Or would you like to also go more granular and find out what type of smartphone and just that matter I guess as well? I
mean, if you guys have access to information that's even more granular, you know, why not? I mean, some bitcoin lightning wallets are not available on iPhones, you know, I don't know about eta wallet. But at least most of the Bitcoin Bitcoin wallets are not available for for iPhone users. It's predominantly Android. And I also have an Android phone for that reason. So I think, knowing whether this so I think the first granular question would be, do they what type of phones? Are they working with? You know, is it sort of a proper? You know, is it a very basic phone? Or is it something that they can actually use an application on? And I guess the second question, then is if they are using a phone that they can actually use an application on? Is it an Android? or is it an Apple phone? But yeah, we can also include those in some of the questions that we ask as well. But yeah, I feel like I feel like that's it, I'm excited about this, this is actually a very specific group of people, which we have a lot of access to, because of the BTC. Hub, we have a very real way in which we can provide a solution for them. And I think it's also very interesting in terms of the the fee bid, and the opening and closing of channels, and feeling into the psychology of the group as well, in terms of what they would be most comfortable with. Because as Daniel said, there's the E cash route. And then there's also the BDC, Africa hub acting as an LSP. So yeah, interesting, interesting stuff. I'm going to move on to next steps, because we have another call that's coming up after this as well. What feels good for you guys? In terms of next steps? What do you think we should do as as next steps for for this?
Are you? So coming up with those questions? Is that something that has come out of this? Or these questions that we've written down or ever written down some questions as well, but how are those questions going to be formed? Because I would imagine that's part of the next step. And then creating that PDF now documentation and going out then and sharing that. And then collecting their feedback from the community. From there? Do you need these questions? Are these interviews to be conducted in a specific way? Should they be recorded? Or is it okay? If they just collect the feedback from like a form or survey format? And then share it? Do you have a preference for that gives us an extra question there? Yeah,
that's a good one. Very situation dependent? You know, I don't know, I'll speak very practically from research that we've done in the community. I've done research at a Bitcoin event where I took down notes on pen and paper, which is also okay. But ideally, you would actually record it, if it would be possible to record and, you know, I'm just saying that it depends on what's available, who's doing the interviews, what that person is the most comfortable with. The pen and paper often is the most basic option. But when using the pen and paper, often it's very important to write down the exact words that the person says verbatim, as opposed to translating what the person says into what you think they said. So there's that very granular thing that if they if the person doing the the interviews is actually taking down notes that they should write down word for word what the person is. But if they're going to record it, then it's fine, because then they you know, we have the recording. So it really depends on who you think would be on the ground doing this and what they would have access to. But I guess you would know that better power loss.
Yeah, for sure. There will be some translation situations. So just FYI, some of these users are only going to speak in Tigrinya, for example. So we'll have to do some translation. But it's great that let's say if Madeline's doing these interviews, that she's the one doing it because I think she can translate and understand the nuances very well and share that with us and findings, so
yeah, perfect, perfect. Okay. So you think it would be better to do actual like writing down? That would be the most likely?
Yeah. Yeah. Maybe the most likely scenario would be to write it down. If she can record them. That would be great. I don't know how much they would help if no one else can understand the translations. Exactly.
Yeah. But
what she can for sure do with the help of others, is translate the questions and also have them written down in that way so that when they see the questions, they can respond to them, maybe they can write them down themselves as well, so that we have a direct response from them. versus us asking the questions and trying to transcribe it ourselves. That
sounds like a good one. That sounds like a good one. I've never done that before. But then we're actually writing down themselves. Yeah. Okay. It's much more. Yeah. Perfect. Yeah,
we'll explore both options. But as you mentioned, I think what we may find is the note taking, and the transfer of information might have been through that format instead. So I'll keep that in mind. And I'll share that and see if men on has other creative ways of doing this.
Perfect. So next step from my side is I'll create a Google document with just just outlining a little bit of the background about the project, adding a list of possible questions that we can use to do some initial events to do this investigation, ask questions, understand this community of people, and then we can collaborate on those questions together. So we decide on those questions together, it's not me deciding what those questions are. And then we'll also you know, lead into the Bitcoin science community as well, in terms of asking questions will lead into Christoph into Daniel as well, you know, to try to understand what would be the best questions to ask this group of people? So yeah, and then once we're all comfortable with the question, we then basically get it on the ground. And then these These interviews are basically done. And yeah, that's, that's pretty much it. How does that feel for you guys?
That sounds good. I wish we could have like a review of you know, how the things go, I think that's going to be reliant on meddling in them once they ask those questions and have sort of conversations amongst themselves. And I think in that moment, would be important for them to share that feedback as well. So I'll, again worked closely with methadone and others that she assigns a task of translating and working with individuals. Fortunately, she has a wide range of people that are there at the hub, from different communities, whether they're Sudanese, Ethiopian, or Eritrean. She knows them all. So I think we won't have any issues there.
I think there's a very special thing that we have, you know, use case that we have access to here is understanding in small communities like this, the trust because, you know, I think what will be very interesting is understanding the trust that they have for BTC hub, and then also the trust that they have within the community as well, because that that essentially decides which lightning solution is going to be the best. That's one of the deciding factors as well. You know, yeah. So okay, cool. So I'm gonna I'm gonna hop off now. Thank you everyone so much for the call. I'm going to stop the recording otherwise, I will forget recording
