Technology
Crypto Corner Podcast: Interview with Coinos - key players in fostering global Bitcoin adoption
In this episode of the Crypto Corner Podcast, hosts Adam and Cole interview key players from Coinos, discussing their journey in the cryptocurrency space and the evolution of their platform aimed at e...
Crypto Corner Podcast: Interview with Coinos - key players in fostering global Bitcoin adoption
Technology •
0:00 / 0:00
Interactive Transcript
spk_0
Welcome to today's edition of Crypto Corner at Investorideas.com news on what's driving the cryptocurrency market.
spk_0
Welcome to the show Adam and Cole for the listeners that aren't familiar with coinos.
spk_0
Can you talk to us about how you started in the crypto space and Bitcoin space and how you came up with the concept of coinos?
spk_0
Yeah, coinos, I guess, is going on more than 10 years old now.
spk_0
I got into Bitcoin in 2011 and just got really excited about the whole idea of it after I convinced myself that it was the real deal.
spk_0
And I moved to Vancouver from Edmonton in 2012 and I started a Bitcoin meetup group.
spk_0
And so many people were just meeting up regularly discussing Bitcoin, trying to figure it out and what the implications are for the world and all that.
spk_0
And one of the ways we thought would be effective to get the message out and what people know about it is to start getting merchant adoption so that people can see that Bitcoin's not just a pawn thief scheme or an investment on the internet that people are putting money into, but it's a real kind of payment technology.
spk_0
So, started talking to business owners and seeing if they would be willing to try accepting Bitcoin for a payment for their goods and services.
spk_0
And coinos was just a simple tool back then for people to put in their Bitcoin address and then enter the sale amount for whatever it was they're selling to enter that in dollars.
spk_0
And then coinos would convert that to the equivalent amount in Bitcoin by looking up the exchange rate and then it would record all the transactions you receive as a business owner.
spk_0
So, if someone was paying you for a coffee or a muffin or you're running a restaurant and someone wanted to come in and pay with Bitcoin, he would punch it into coinos.
spk_0
They would send the payment to your address and it would tell you in dollar terms what you received and then keep track of all that for accounting.
spk_0
And it's just kind of evolved since then it has in 2018 we added support for the lightning network, which is a new layer of Bitcoin that is faster and cheaper so you don't have to wait for those 10 minute block confirmations for the money to settle.
spk_0
And the fees are a lot cheaper on the lightning network they're on the order of fractions of a cent.
spk_0
And so yeah, just been the last couple years I came up with coal and we've been just trying to get more and more merchants accepting Bitcoin payments primarily in Vancouver.
spk_0
We've been going around here because that's where we're based or I'm based in Vancouver coal and Whistler but pretty close by.
spk_0
But we do have places all over the world starting to use it.
spk_0
So there's a big contingent down in Brazil without using it to take payments there and you know, we're starting to see places pop up all over the place that are using it to take Bitcoin.
spk_0
Can you talk to our listeners about the lightning network and how that's changed the adoption of basically using Bitcoin as payment in most places and you know some of the differences between maybe lightning network and liquid network and a few of the others that are maybe comparable or competitors.
spk_0
Yeah, yeah, sure.
spk_0
Yeah, so the difference between like lightning the lightning network has been an amazing you could call it an upgrade.
spk_0
But instead of using the word upgrade, I would say it's an addition to the coins use case.
spk_0
So you know with the lightning network like Adam would say it's it's it makes transactions instant with virtually no fees.
spk_0
And people ask me like what is the lightning network what is it what it is like in a dumb down kind of what it is dumb down is a it's not on the blockchain.
spk_0
It's a layer to network for Bitcoin, but it's not on the blockchain.
spk_0
So if I had my way, I would only ever transact on lightning and not use normal on chain Bitcoin using lightning is still using Bitcoin and it's more private because it's nodes interacting with other nodes.
spk_0
So for example, if I have a node a lightning node and you call you you have a lightning node you and me could do transactions to each other instantly across the world for virtually no fees you set the fee on your own node.
spk_0
Now in order for us to avoid the complication of everyone having to run their own node, we suggest people use wallets such as ours and there's many others out there as well.
spk_0
And if you use a wallet like ours, then you're basically using our node to interact with other nodes using our nodes interact with other lightning wallets.
spk_0
So if someone else could have a different lightning wallet such as moon or something like that and you would be using moons node or if you use a different lightning wallet you're using their nodes and it prevents it avoids you having to create your own nodes.
spk_0
And that's how lightning network is scalable right now and that's how it is going to scale even bigger.
spk_0
We were in close, like we have our channels, our lightning channels which we have our lightning channels open with the biggest lightning wallet providers in the world.
spk_0
So that means if you have a coin us wallet you can pretty much do lightning transactions with all of the biggest the biggest names in the lightning wallet space.
spk_0
And then liquid network is a liquid network is a layer to Bitcoin and the liquid network is on the blockchain itself.
spk_0
So when you transact on the liquid network, it's an amazing thing to have as well.
spk_0
So but it's not that it doesn't work the same as lightning lightning network operates with nodes and channels and not on the blockchain but liquid network is on the blockchain.
spk_0
So it's basically liquid Bitcoin transferring way faster with almost no fees and our classic our version one of coin us which is classic dots coin us.
spk_0
I know we an interoperability but lightning on chain Bitcoin and liquid all three and you can swap in between one.
spk_0
We take care of that flop for you so you don't need to go into your own settings and select which one you want to swap to.
spk_0
If you have a hundred dollars in your coin us wallet and you scan someone else's QR code it whether they have an on chain Bitcoin wallet address or a lightning wallet address coin us will detect what kind of wallet they have.
spk_0
And that's where we would do the swap for you from on chain Bitcoin to lightning Bitcoin so you don't need to deal with the complications of that either.
spk_0
But it in that shell that's that's what I would say the biggest improvements are lightning the lightning network is in general is at the lightning network capacity is at an all time high right now right in this moment.
spk_0
I don't know if it's an all time high but the past couple weeks in his reach and all time high and the last year lightning the lightning network was still reaching all time high the lightning network capacity even during a bear market of Bitcoin.
spk_0
So we have seen all three of us have seen evidence that even when Bitcoin is on a downtrend or even when Bitcoin price of low the lightning network capacity keeps growing that's a very good sign for user adoption.
spk_0
And that's what enables us to make it more adopt to make it more that's what enables us to make it more usable for merges and for people who walk in the coffee shops and they don't want to wait half an hour for three confirmations of the Bitcoin on chain transactions they want instance just like the owner wants an instant transaction.
spk_0
You have such a user friendly and easy to set up product for everyone so can you kind of I've seen through your website and everything and we can talk about where everyone can find this later in your videos.
spk_0
But can you just walk us through how the setup for a coin house wallet and you know basically how simple and user friendly and easy to join.
spk_0
Yes, so to join it is as easy as typing in on any browser coin off dot I'll see oh I'm OS dot I'll you don't even need to put WW we've made it as easy and seamless as possible you go to coin us dot I'll and then you press the big black button that is on the home screen.
spk_0
Sorry that is on the home page it says start in seconds you press that button it brings you to a sign up page a username and password we don't even ask for your email because we understand the value of privacy and we know that people other we know that other users value that as well.
spk_0
So we can also auto generate your username for you to make it an even faster process and you can change your username later at any point but even if you want to make your own username and your own password the whole process from start to finish of creating an account I would say can take 10 to 15 seconds we were actually on and we were talking with Matt O'Dell to those who are in the Bitcoin space and he is confident that he can make a coin house wallet in less than a minute.
spk_0
10 seconds and then once you yeah so we were happy to hear Matt O'Dell's opinion of the other side of that that was cool so after you make an account then you know you can automatically start receiving and send Bitcoin on chain payments or lightning on chain or lightning payments.
spk_0
So as far as your lower fees and that whole process goes can you talk about how you guys are able to offer that compared to some of the other like competitors out there.
spk_0
Yeah so we don't we don't have any fees to create an account and to receive money into the account you can receive a call and say an on chain Bitcoin or lightning and then once you go to make it with a draw we record behind the scenes what
spk_0
what network the funds came in on so if your funds were deposited over lightning and you put into a thousand dollars tenadian worth of Bitcoin over the lightning network and you get a credit in your account it's not going to be visible to you but it's it's in our database that you have 0.1% of that is going to be credited to cover with draw fees.
spk_0
So if you deposit over lightning and then with a draw over lightning you can withdraw your full balance that thousand dollars for free because that credit will be applied because you're withdrawing over the same network that you deposited on but if you deposit a thousand on lightning and then you
spk_0
try to withdraw to an on chain Bitcoin address then that 0.1% lightning credit won't apply in that case and so you will be paying 0.1% to us to convert the lightning funds to on chain funds.
spk_0
So that's where the fees come in is when you're going between lightning to on chain Bitcoin or vice versa but if you're just using coin us to receive like receive over one network and send out over the same network then that's going to be free.
spk_0
The only fee that comes into play there is the network fee that is paid to like the well in the case of an on chain payment it's paid to the Bitcoin miners and that's a fee that you can set yourself there's a drop down where you can choose whether you want your transaction to confirm like really fast like within the next block or if you're okay to wait and you want to set a lower fee then it'll let you wait.
spk_0
Basically at the 40 blocks so yeah you decide what fee to pay there and with lightning if you're trying to pay a note that we're not directly connected to so one that we have to you know route the payments through the lightning network then depending on the route that it takes there's going to be a fee there but it'll be really small patient stuff yet so right now it's just a free app and it's open source so anyone can go to the market and see if you can see it.
spk_0
You can run the coin us code on their own server you don't have to use it at our website you could run it at home you could put it at your own domain you could take the code and modify all the branding and the look and feel kind of like posting your own WordPress blog or something if you wanted to run your own coin us instance.
spk_0
So if your mission statement at current I think definitely I would love to hear that.
spk_0
So yeah that's our we we totally were big believers in it because we we understand like the basics of market cycles so investment part of it is a big motivator of course right and you know we're not here for price increase going up we're here for the technology behind it as well and that's the that's our motivation we know that the more adopted we know that we're going to be able to do that.
spk_0
So if we make it it's going to bring more users into the Bitcoin space Bitcoin and lightning and liquid space and it's just going to drive more adoption into Bitcoin and I've I've onboarded many people on to the Bitcoin network onboarded as in like I've orange till many people into buying.
spk_0
I mean size of a medium size amount of Bitcoin and that's from showing them that like hey guys look you can spend it here you can spend it there you can go to a butcher shop you can get your haircut you can go to multiple different kinds of restaurants you can get your boat repaired you can get you can rent an exotic car you can get your windows change like there's so many different things you can do with paying with Bitcoin without needing visa.
spk_0
So I think that's a middleman I mean it's okay the fact that we do have visa Bitcoin visa cards pay that we can use I think that's great for overall adoption but to not need visa is an even bigger step toward adoption because a lot of people value privacy.
spk_0
And so those are that's a big part of our motivation and I know where it's going with the lightning network capacity the fact that that Bitcoin's hash rate kept reaching all time highs even during the 2022 bear market and even right now the Bitcoin hash rate is increasing.
spk_0
So the market does not need to be going up for Bitcoin network and the lightning network to increase and strength and security so I'm very grateful for those reasons.
spk_0
When you talk about that you have open source do you have a lot of different other like technicians or anyone that's helping you develop within the code nothing for you guys as well or is that just free to use for them to download.
spk_0
Yeah over the years we've had a number of different contributors and I've had other contractors in the past that I hired to help build the code to where it is today.
spk_0
I'm the main developer still and lately it's been me plugging away at it but yeah we do have other people using it in other countries and who are starting to download it and set it up on their own servers.
spk_0
So I'm consulting with a few different people to get them their own coin aus instances and then the idea is yeah at some point they'll be able to contribute back so if they have new features that they want to develop that are specific to their region or to their customer base then they'll be running like a fork of our code and then if they make improvements or hire people to develop that then it all comes back.
spk_0
Like we can pick and choose you know some of those improvements that we want to bring back into coin aus.
spk_0
That's the beauty of open sources that you get people from all over the world developing things and you can share and develop you know better products for everyone.
spk_0
And a big proponent of open source software.
spk_0
We have a coin aus all over the world and you're being adopted in lots of different places.
spk_0
Obviously you're based in Vancouver. Can you talk to us about some of the differences of what you're seeing like you know home based versus I know obviously you know in Miami is a big adoption area.
spk_0
What are some of the statistics that are coming out of BC I'd be curious about and then what are you seeing in some of the other places.
spk_0
One thing I can mention is like the difference between here in Vancouver and down in Brazil is just the method that we're using is a little bit different for people to take payments and like for the merchants.
spk_0
The way they use the app is a bit different.
spk_0
So here we've been encouraging most merchants to just have a QR code printed off on like a sticker.
spk_0
And then customers will go in and scan that sticker and it takes them to the merchants coin aus profile page.
spk_0
So every coin aus user has a username and if you go to coin aus.io slash that username like in my case it's coin aus.io slash Adam would take you to my page.
spk_0
And the customer that's visiting that page will see a button to pay the merchant.
spk_0
Or they can click pay and then enter in the amount they want to send.
spk_0
And then there's an option to add a tip in some cases.
spk_0
Merchants can decide whether they want to prompt for a tip or not.
spk_0
So a lot of them will ask you want to add 10% or 20%.
spk_0
There's different buttons that you can choose your tip and then the merchant or the customer will just send the funds.
spk_0
And the merchant will in our case in Vancouver, the merchants will have a printer that we give them that print out a little piece of paper with the amount that they received in dollars.
spk_0
So they'll see this piece of paper come out that goes, oh you just received a payment for $6.
spk_0
And that's how they know that they got paid.
spk_0
But down in Brazil most of the merchants they are using just either their phone or they have a tablet.
spk_0
And they're doing the payment on that device.
spk_0
So instead of the customer coming and scanning a sticker, the merchant is going to initiate that payment by bringing up their tablet and then typing the amount in there and then getting the customer to scan the QR code and pay it that way.
spk_0
How has it been the feedback from merchants like setting up in store that just curious from like a Vancouver perspective?
spk_0
Has it been easy to get whether it's like a coffee shop or a restaurant or whatever to say yes, we're definitely interested in that or has it been a bit of a technology hump to get over for them to adopt new ideas.
spk_0
Yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah, so most I would say 90% of the people we approach are no coiners.
spk_0
So no coiner for those listening, no, no, that means that just means someone who doesn't have any Bitcoin and they're not invested in it.
spk_0
So we do get me and Adam both we get lots of practice with how to talk to these kinds of people and the big, the most effective thing to say, I mean, just in my personal opinion and what's been working for us.
spk_0
The most effective thing to say to merchants is that we guarantee you more sales and we can literally give that guarantee because we give your business if you want to use us to accept Bitcoin payments.
spk_0
We give your business three marketing slash promotion on all of our social media.
spk_0
We have map websites such as BTC map org that's what there's other web there's other map websites that we post the businesses on, but the one that we find is the most effective is BTC map org.
spk_0
So when we do things like that and also we promote the businesses in our telegram group chats telegram is phenomenal for good quality engagement from the Vancouver Bitcoin community.
spk_0
And in other cities and other countries are using us as well, we like I'm promoting our stuff in other countries that have communities using our business as well.
spk_0
And so when we tell the business owners these points and we let them know that all that person down the street is using us and that other person a few blocks north of you is using it and then another person five blocks south of you's using it and you give them that social proof of the fact that other people are using it that helps a lot because it gives them confidence.
spk_0
And so that's the difference that is actually working. Some of them will even be friends with some of these other business owners near them and then they call them and they'll be like hey, how's it working out?
spk_0
So the key to us getting certain areas of Vancouver more Bitcoin eyes with more merchant adoption is to get them talking to each other and get companies or get businesses in the same area because then they it's easier for them to talk to each other and get each other's feedback.
spk_0
We'll move back into Bitcoin you guys are obviously big followers and believers in it. So you know what what are you guys kind of forecasting and what do you see for 2024 what are you hoping to see for 2024 the Bitcoin story?
spk_0
Yeah, I'm hoping to see more adoption new tech coming out that makes Bitcoin scale better so lightning's done a really good job so far but we're still seeing high fees on the blockchain right now and lightning can't scale forever.
spk_0
So if we had a huge explosion of new users and new companies all wanting to use Bitcoin it would probably be a little bit messy and expensive right now and things might not work super smoothly so what I'm forward to seeing people come up with ways to make even lightning more efficient have less of a footprint on the on chain fees other layer to for Bitcoin that could help keep people going.
spk_0
Keep the cost below for those fees and then I guess the institutional level adoption like they might see the ETFs get approved and that'll just make it a lot easier for big companies and funds to invest capital into Bitcoin.
spk_0
So we could see a huge price spike if some of those get approved because it'll just be a lot easier for these big players to just you know click a button and say okay buy some of that ETF versus right now for them to try to acquire a position in Bitcoin if they're trying to do it you know self custodially where they have their own wallet and keep the Bitcoin in their own account.
spk_0
Where they have the keys to it then there's all kinds of risks and issues without when you're doing it at like a corporate level so just giving them the you know the entry way to be able to buy large amounts of Bitcoin and have a lot of capital flow into it pretty much everything Adam said was being on there with you know the ETF like we're excited about ETF being approved and it's going to just bring a big inflow of all these old school investors right.
spk_0
And you know black rock and stability and grade scale are confessed like the biggest companies who are applying for the ETF they have tons of old school people in their in their company so they those people are going to now have an easy way to invest in Bitcoin I myself I'm not going to put my money in an ETF right.
spk_0
I have I have I have my Bitcoin and cold storage right I mean Adam teach people about cold storage yes we are we are a custodial wallet no problem but we we do teach people about coastal self custody and with you people about cold storage so but I know that the ETF news is going to bring a big inflow into Bitcoin the big inflow money and when people realize the difference between Bitcoin and other you know cryptocurrencies when people realize that difference
spk_0
and they are more so in their more they're more inclined to get into it right and I'm very positive what the future I can't say I know what's going to happen there's no guarantees of anything obviously except death in taxes obviously but we but we are very very confidence about the future long term and short term of Bitcoin.
spk_0
And for your wallet do you have a non custodial option as well or is it just a custodial or is that something that you might add in in the future.
spk_0
We have a non custodial option in the classic clean us at classic dot coin us.io which was sort of the previous incarnation of the wallet before we rewrote it last year or a couple years ago but we're going to be adding that back in.
spk_0
So yeah it'll be coming soon to the current version of coin us where you'll be able to back up your 12-word seed phrase and that'll be your keys that we don't store on our server anywhere and the way it'll work is once your balance hits a certain threshold in the custodial wallet which gives you the ability to use the lightning network really seamlessly once you hit a certain balance there you'll be able to set up in your account.
spk_0
So you can set up settings what that threshold is and how much you want to move to your own self custodial wallet and that could be done on a you know when you hit a certain balance in your account or it could be something where it's just every 24 hours you withdraw you know x percentage of your balance to your cold storage.
spk_0
And if you don't have or if you do have your own cold storage like you have a hardware wallet or a paper wallet or something and you want to put in your own address from an external wallet we'll support that as well or if you just want to move to like another lightning address or another lightning wallet by another provider or something or your own node or something we'll let you put that in.
spk_0
So that's something I'm working on right now.
spk_0
Oh that's exciting. So for merchants that are interested after hearing the podcast that they want to sign up where can they go to connect with you how does that work if someone's just looking for the wallet you mentioned that they can just go to point us.io.
spk_0
Where can they find you also on social media and you mentioned the Bitcoin group in Vancouver if you can give some information on all those for people to reach out to you.
spk_0
Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah on the bottom of our homepage coin us.io you can see all of our links are Twitter telegram and our link tree our link tree is in basically L I N K PR dot EE slash coin us.io and all those links to all of our social media are on the bottom of our homepage.
spk_0
Yeah, so telegram we highly recommend people join our telegram group our clean off telegram group.
spk_0
You can ask a lot of troubleshooting questions there as well and we are very prompted helping people out and answering their questions there.
spk_0
Just end off with what we're saying. Yeah, we have over three hundred and seventy five businesses worldwide.
spk_0
Anyone is is able to use us as long as Bitcoin is legal in their country. Yeah.
spk_0
Well, thank you so much. Cool. And Adam for joining the show and I hope everyone goes and joins you telegram group and follows you guys.
spk_0
And get the coin of a wallet.
spk_0
That does it for today's crypto corner. If you would like to be a guest or sponsor for this podcast contact investor ideas dot com.
spk_0
Investor ideas reminds all listeners to read our disclaimers and disclosures on the investor ideas dot com website.
spk_0
This podcast is not endorsement to buy products services or securities.
spk_0
Investors that reminded all investment involved risk and possible loss in investment.
spk_0
To hear more investor ideas dot com podcasts please visit investor ideas dot com slash audio.
spk_0
And a reminder you can also hear our podcasts on Apple podcasts audible Spotify tune in stitcher speaker dot com i heart radio.
spk_0
Google podcasts and most audio platforms available.