Control Your Data: How Bitcoin Is Powering the Future of Digital Identity - Mike Carson
DOWNLOAD YOUR COPY OF THE BITCOIN-FOR-BUSINESS QUICK START GUIDE
This free, 27-page resource includes:
- Six ways ANY business can benefit from Bitcoin
- Some of the best Bitcoin-only businesses to partner with
- Key Bitcoin concepts for people getting started
Mike Carson, founder of Spaces Protocol, is revolutionizing digital identity with a decentralized system on Bitcoin that empowers user control. As the owner of Friendster.com, heβs planning a reboot to give users ownership of their data. Previously, Carson founded and exited Park.io, co-founded WizeHive, which hit $10 million in revenue and managed three ICANN-accredited registrars. An early Bitcoin advocate, heβs been active in the community since 2013, running one of the first Lightning nodes and pioneering real-world Bitcoin transactions.
π CONNECT WITH MIKE
- π X: @ca98am79 on Twitter
- π Website: Mike 's Website
π CONNECT WITH JOSH
- π X:@joshuafriedeman
- π LinkedIn:@joshuafriedeman
- πΊ YouTube:@joshuafriedeman
TAKEAWAYS
- Mike Carson emphasizes the importance of decentralized identity, allowing users to own their names without third-party control.
- The Spaces Protocol offers a new approach to digital identity using Bitcoin, enabling user empowerment and data ownership.
- Early Bitcoin adopters, like Carson, see the potential for newcomers to still benefit from buying bitcoin today.
- Carson's experience with the Lightning Network illustrates the importance of being involved in emerging technologies early on.
- The auction system for names in the Spaces Protocol ensures fairness and prevents domain squatting by individuals.
- Understanding bitcoin's simplicity can help demystify it for those who are new.
SHOW PARTNERS
Mentioned in this episode:
Strong Wealth: Wealth Management for Bitcoiners, by Bitcoiners
Velas Commerce: Biz Tech Meets Bitcoin
DOWNLOAD YOUR COPY OF THE BITCOIN-FOR-BUSINESS QUICK START GUIDE
Transcript
It's like GoFundMe, you know, like when the Canadian truck drivers or whatever had that boycott and a lot of people sent them money, GoFundMe was like, you know what?
Mike Carson:We're not all that money you sent.
Mike Carson:We're just going to give it to other charities and stuff.
Mike Carson:So it would be much.
Mike Carson:Wouldn't it be much more cool if you could, like, send it to truckers at bitcoin and then nobody's going to.
Mike Carson:They got, you know, whoever controls that name gets the money and nobody can stop.
Josh Friedemann:Welcome to the Business Bitcoinization show, the show dedicated to helping you enrich your life and grow your business with bitcoin, the hardest money on planet Earth.
Josh Friedemann:I'm your host, Josh Friedemann, and our guest today is Mike Carson, who is an early user of the Bitcoin Lightning Network.
Josh Friedemann:He was also one of the first three people, along with Jack Mallers, to purchase a physical item on the Lightning Network.
Josh Friedemann:And now he's created the Spaces protocol, which helps users create permissionless and secure digital spaces.
Josh Friedemann:We're going to get to our interview with Mike right after this.
Josh Friedemann:Mike, welcome to the podcast.
Mike Carson:Thanks.
Mike Carson:Thanks for having me.
Josh Friedemann:So I like to start off every single interview with a few questions that help us to get to know you a little bit better and give us some insight for our own lives.
Josh Friedemann:Are you ready for these?
Mike Carson:Yeah.
Josh Friedemann:Question number one is this.
Josh Friedemann:When and how did you first learn about bitcoin?
Mike Carson:I read Hacker News.
Mike Carson:I've been on Hacker News for a long time and I remember seeing some posts about bitcoin, but I didn't pay attention.
Mike Carson:Attention.
Mike Carson:I wish I would have paid attention, you know, because I think it like, they posted on Hacker News when it first came out, but.
Mike Carson:So I ignored like the first two or three posts.
Mike Carson:But then there was a post about it again and I was like, maybe I should look.
Mike Carson:This sounds interesting.
Mike Carson:So I looked into it.
Mike Carson:I looked in my email, like, I searched my email for the earliest mention of bitcoin and I was chatting with a friend and I was like, I really want to get bitcoin.
Mike Carson:I think it could be big.
Mike Carson:It's currently.
Mike Carson:It was at $8 on Wednesday and now it's up to $16.
Mike Carson:So I missed the chance.
Mike Carson:But I remember looking into it back then and wanting to buy it, but there were no exchanges like Coinbase or Gemini and stuff.
Mike Carson:So I remember I created an account and you had to go to Western.
Mike Carson:You had to Western Union some money somewhere.
Mike Carson:And it just seemed like such a hassle and I just didn't do it, but I wish I would have.
Mike Carson:But then I got.
Mike Carson:I remember I had a little bit of bitcoin.
Mike Carson:I'm a domain investor, so I sold a domain for some.
Mike Carson:Like, I remember, I think I sold a domain for 5 bitcoins.
Mike Carson:And this is when Bitcoin was like under $100.
Mike Carson:So it's a domain for like less than $500.
Mike Carson:But then I sold it because it ran up to like a thousand.
Mike Carson:It went from under 100 to.
Mike Carson:And like, I sold it at like 200.
Mike Carson:I was like, yeah, I doubled my money, you know.
Mike Carson:But then after it went so fast, up so fast and like, I was like, this is okay.
Mike Carson:Something is going.
Mike Carson:Something's here.
Mike Carson:So I waited and like, I don't know, I think I got, you know, I really got it.
Mike Carson: I got into Bitcoin in: Mike Carson: re's like a bear market, like: Mike Carson:I had waited for.
Mike Carson:And like, I.
Mike Carson:I was like.
Mike Carson:Because it was in the news and stuff, but I was like, I'm going to wait until it's like, kind of quiet and it like, levels off and there's not a lot of stuff going on.
Mike Carson:And then I got some more then.
Mike Carson:But yeah, so it's.
Mike Carson:I've been in, you know, I've been watching it a while.
Mike Carson:Over 10 years, probably since.
Mike Carson:Seriously.
Mike Carson: Well, since: Josh Friedemann:Yeah.
Josh Friedemann:Well, I think the anecdote of you noticing it at 16 when it had just been 8, I think that's good for a lot of who might just now be getting interested in bitcoin to hear, because it just went from about 60 to 90 in the last couple of weeks.
Josh Friedemann:Some people are going to think that they're late to the game, but I think a lot of people who have been around bitcoin for any number of years would probably say that anyone coming in the next five or 10 years is still early in the grand scheme of things.
Josh Friedemann: Obviously, getting in: Josh Friedemann: lly hold it all the way until: Josh Friedemann:So it's just a different time.
Josh Friedemann:But it's certainly not too late to buy bitcoin.
Mike Carson:The thing is, it's a constant learning experience.
Mike Carson:I keep learning more and more and more about it, but right now it's like talking about, are you early or late?
Mike Carson:It's like, what are the alternatives here?
Mike Carson:You know, like, do you want fiat money, which is, you know, backed by the government where they can print as much as they want?
Mike Carson:Is that what you want to, you know, you work your whole life to save up and do you want your money?
Mike Carson:Do you want to hold your wealth in something where they can print a lot more and they have printed a lot more in the last few years?
Mike Carson:It's like, no, I don't, I don't want that.
Mike Carson:And then, but then it's like, where, you know, what are the options?
Mike Carson:And you know, you just learn more and more that like, you know, bitcoin is, I mean, what I love about what.
Mike Carson:I mean, there's a lot of things I love about it, but it's like it's backed by math.
Mike Carson:You know, it's.
Mike Carson:It's not backed by the power of the, you know, government of or, you know, the military or, you know, whatever else.
Mike Carson:It's like it's backed just purely by math, which is really cool.
Josh Friedemann:So that may.
Josh Friedemann:You may have pre answered this question, but question number two is what's an insight or fact about bitcoin that you wish everyone understood?
Mike Carson:Yeah, that's hard to narrow down to one.
Mike Carson:But I mean, it's the cool.
Mike Carson:Yeah, I mean, the.
Mike Carson:Well, I guess.
Mike Carson:Okay, here's one thing that I think.
Mike Carson:I think would be.
Mike Carson:Is really interesting thing about bitcoin that I wish more people knew is that it's not that complicated like it seems.
Mike Carson:I mean, it can be, you know, it can if you like, dive into the code and stuff like that.
Mike Carson:But like, if you just read the white paper, that.
Mike Carson:That's what struck me really is like, you know, it's not this like huge, complex research paper where you have to have a PhD to know.
Mike Carson:It's like, it's actually like pretty simple in like, you could probably watch a YouTube video on it or something.
Mike Carson:But the way that blocks are mined, it's like you just have to find the, you know, you just have to do a math problem so that the first number of the first numbers are zeros.
Mike Carson:You know, it's like really simple like that.
Mike Carson:That's how you mine a block and you.
Mike Carson:And you get the block reward in bitcoin, it's just like, you know, it's pretty much a simple math problem, but the concept is pretty simple.
Mike Carson:But it solves this problem that has never been solved before, which is really cool.
Mike Carson:So it's backed by this simple and Elegant, like, solution to this problem that's never been solved before.
Mike Carson:So I guess my main.
Mike Carson:I guess if I was going to convey one thing, it'd be like, it's not as complicated as people try to make it sound, or it may sound.
Mike Carson:The basic principles are pretty simple to understand.
Josh Friedemann:Question number three.
Josh Friedemann:What's the bitcoin resource you most recommend to other people?
Mike Carson:Yeah, that's a tricky one.
Mike Carson:I'm a fan of Andreas Antonopoulos.
Mike Carson:He's been around for a long time and he has a lot of good videos on.
Mike Carson:He does a good job of explaining Bitcoin.
Mike Carson:His book Mastering Bitcoin is really good.
Mike Carson:If you read that, you'll have a really good understanding of Bitcoin.
Mike Carson:And he's on Patreon now.
Mike Carson:You can, like, sign up and he does monthly, like, question and answer stuff.
Mike Carson:And so I guess that that would be my resource I'd recommend.
Josh Friedemann:Yeah.
Josh Friedemann:Question number four.
Josh Friedemann:Beyond Bitcoin, what's a resource tool or idea that's been helpful to you or your work recently?
Mike Carson:Yeah, that one.
Mike Carson:It would definitely have to be AI.
Mike Carson:I mean, AI has changed.
Mike Carson:I mean, for me, I was a little skeptical at first.
Mike Carson:You know, I don't.
Mike Carson:I don't know what's a good.
Mike Carson:What's it really changing?
Mike Carson:What's it.
Mike Carson:You know, is it.
Mike Carson:Is it really.
Mike Carson:Is there just a lot of hype about it?
Mike Carson:But then I started using it for programming and it's a world of difference from, like, I remember programming six years ago before my daughter was born.
Mike Carson:And, you know, is.
Mike Carson:It is completely different.
Mike Carson:It was so much slower.
Mike Carson:Like now with AI, it's so much faster.
Mike Carson:I can do so much more, so much more quickly.
Mike Carson:It's really changed the.
Mike Carson:It's really changed it completely.
Mike Carson:Like, if I had to go back just six years ago and program stuff, it would be so horrible.
Mike Carson:I was talking to my friend.
Mike Carson:He.
Mike Carson:He's older and he, like, used to work at an accounting firm where they had to do, like.
Mike Carson:He had to type in numbers into this, like, punch, you know, it wasn't a computer, it was just like a calculator thing or whatever, like an.
Mike Carson:And he was like, if I had to go back and do that, I would kill myself.
Mike Carson:And it's like almost.
Mike Carson:It's.
Mike Carson:In some ways it's kind of similar.
Mike Carson:Like, if I had to go back and program, then it's so much harder.
Mike Carson:It's so much slower that it would be almost unbearable in some ways.
Mike Carson:And I think just going forward, it's.
Mike Carson:It might get more and More like that, you know, like, faster.
Mike Carson:Because I was a little skeptical at first, but now I'm not skeptical because I've used it, and it's really helped me for multiple things, not just programming.
Mike Carson:Like, I was putting together these robotic eyes.
Mike Carson:I have a 3D printer, and me and my kids were, like, putting together, like, wiring these circuits for these robot eyes.
Mike Carson:And I'm not an electrician or anything, so I don't.
Mike Carson:I didn't really know.
Mike Carson:I mean, there was a wiring diagram, but there was.
Mike Carson:I had some questions because there was one wire that split into three.
Mike Carson:And so I just put the wiring diagram on AI And I was like, you can see that it splits into three here.
Mike Carson:What do I.
Mike Carson:Should I splice the wire?
Mike Carson:What should I do?
Mike Carson:And it was like, no, it's not recommended you splice the wire.
Mike Carson:You should probably get, like, a breadboard.
Mike Carson:And I didn't know what a breadboard was, but I got one on Amazon for, like, a couple dollars, and it works perfectly.
Mike Carson:So it's like having an expert right there to help with a lot of different things.
Mike Carson:So, yeah, I mean, I can imagine it.
Mike Carson:Like, imagine when robot.
Mike Carson:Like the Tesla robot or whatever comes in and it has those capabilities.
Mike Carson:It's gonna be.
Mike Carson:Things are gon.
Josh Friedemann:Yeah, it'll be an interesting decade or two ahead of us, for sure.
Josh Friedemann:And I'm sure things will only accelerate instead of slow down.
Josh Friedemann:But it is interesting to see all that's even transpired in the last couple of years from AI first, at least the things I was using it for is very rudimentary.
Josh Friedemann:But now it's a great sounding board, and a lot of helpful ideas, or at least sparks for additional ideas have come from AI So I can definitely, you know, resonate with what you're saying there.
Josh Friedemann:Now we have our final.
Josh Friedemann:What we call our arbitrary but insightful question.
Josh Friedemann:And it's this.
Josh Friedemann:As a general life principle, is it better to ask why or why not?
Mike Carson:Yeah, that's.
Mike Carson:That's a good question.
Mike Carson:Interesting question.
Mike Carson:Because they're.
Mike Carson:In some ways, they're similar.
Mike Carson:But I.
Mike Carson:I like the why not question because I think it's good to question, like, you know, why things are the way they are and do they have to be.
Mike Carson:I try to.
Mike Carson:I really try to teach that to my kids, too.
Mike Carson:Like, actually, my.
Mike Carson:My son, I purposely didn't give him a middle name for that reason.
Mike Carson:Like, I want it because I wanted.
Mike Carson:That's the whole reason and I explained this to him, is like, I want you to question, like, do you have to do the things that people say, you don't have to do it just because people say you can think for yourself, basically think for yourself about things.
Mike Carson:So yeah, I like that.
Mike Carson:Why?
Mike Carson:Why not?
Mike Carson:But why is good too.
Josh Friedemann:Yeah, they both have their place, for sure.
Josh Friedemann:Well, Mike, we're here today to talk about a number of things you're involved with, but primarily the Spaces protocol, which I think when this is released, Spaces will have just been made.
Josh Friedemann:If my intel is correct, I'm wondering if you could share with us a little bit about the Spaces protocol and sort of the problem that you're looking to solve with it.
Mike Carson: d a company called Parc IO in: Mike Carson:So 10 years ago that was into the traditional domain name industry.
Mike Carson:And I ended up managing like three ICANN accredited registrars and did a lot of domain stuff during that time and traditional domain stuff like DNS and stuff.
Mike Carson:And so I got to know a lot how it works.
Mike Carson:And also at the same time I was really into Bitcoin and I realized that domain names should definitely be on a blockchain because they're a digital asset.
Mike Carson:And why do you need a third party to, you know, give you permission to use your name or why do you need a third party in between and, and the problems even get worse.
Mike Carson:It's not just like ownership.
Mike Carson:There's like, you know, everybody who encrypts traffic on the Internet has to rely on a third party certificate authority.
Mike Carson:So you have to like, basically you sign it with somebody else's keys.
Mike Carson:You know, it's, it's kind of ridiculous.
Mike Carson:And it's not just domain names though.
Mike Carson:It's like usernames, like usernames are taken.
Mike Carson:Like they even, you know, not to get too political, but like, you know, even the President of the United States had his Twitter name taken away.
Mike Carson:A person should be able to own their name.
Mike Carson:Like it's super important.
Mike Carson:If there's one thing as important as money, it's being decentralized, it's naming.
Mike Carson:You know, I looked at all the existing solutions like Namecoin and ENS and handshake and stuff, and, and through trial and error and stuff and working with them, realized that something should be built on Bitcoin.
Mike Carson:Bitcoin's by far the strongest proof of work blockchain out there.
Mike Carson:And it's in my opinion the most decentralized.
Mike Carson:I know there's problems with mining and stuff, like who the percentages of miners and stuff, but it's, you know, if you compare it to like Ethereum, which is really hard for one person to download and verify the whole blockchain.
Mike Carson:Like a lot of people are relying on like, you know, third party, like Infura and stuff like that.
Mike Carson:So I wanted something, I thought something should be anchored in the security of Bitcoin.
Mike Carson:And so we spent a year and a half or two years working on this protocol that's built on Bitcoin that requires no changes to Bitcoin and leaves a really lightweight footprint, like a really small footprint on the blockchain.
Mike Carson:But it's a decentralized naming system so people can actually own their name and use it for however they want and they don't have to ask permission.
Mike Carson:So yeah, we're launching that a week from yesterday, so in six days.
Mike Carson:And yeah, I'm really excited about it.
Josh Friedemann:So let's say you purchase and would this be a, I'm just thinking what would you, would it be like my first name that I could potentially buy or what are people buying whenever they purchase a name and where can they use it?
Mike Carson:Any name can go up for.
Mike Carson:There's an auction system, so it's a fair process of rolling it out.
Mike Carson:Like some other protocols had some trouble, like name coin, they just allowed anybody to register a name at any time.
Mike Carson:So basically they all got squatted on.
Mike Carson:Like you couldn't get a good name because one or two few people had registered them all.
Mike Carson:But we, so we have an auction system where if you want a name, like if you want Josh or if you, you know, Friedman or like anything like you know, Bitcoin or like podcast or anything, you, you open it up for auction and there's a rollout process where it basically rolls out the 10 auctions with the highest bids.
Mike Carson:They, every day they go into a 10 day auction and so anybody has a chance to bid during those 10 days, anybody can bid and you bid with Bitcoin to get that name and then at the end of 10 days, whoever has the highest bid can register that name and then they own it and yeah, to use it.
Mike Carson:I mean we've, we've, if you check out our GitHub, you can go to spaces protocol.org and our link to our GitHub's there and we have a way to configure it with DNS, but there's, there's a lot of different ways you could use it.
Mike Carson:I mean, you know, you could use it for DNS, which we have a system for that, or you could use it for usernames.
Mike Carson:Like I think a really great Use case would be a Noster username.
Mike Carson:Because right now everybody's like, here's my, you know, here's my in pub or like my key or whatever, and it's like this long string, you know, Wouldn't it be better if you could be like, yeah, just.
Mike Carson:You could just find me at like Josh at Noster, like.
Mike Carson:And so I think that's really a good use case.
Mike Carson:I mean, there's other things like sending Bitcoin to, like you could send Bitcoin to at Josh or, you know, Josh at Bitcoin or whatever and you know, sending crypto payments like that.
Mike Carson:But yeah, there's a lot of.
Mike Carson:Anything that ties a name to arbitrary, like data that's hard to memorize.
Mike Carson:You know, naming is like something that's been going on for a long time.
Mike Carson:Like cities, instead of having like coordinates, like, you know, geolocation coordinates, you have a city name, you know, or country name.
Mike Carson:And like, instead of like saying you're the fourth son of, you know, whatever, you're like, you have a name, you have a name, a surname and like, so it's something that's like super valuable and used all the time.
Mike Carson:Just like money and you shouldn't.
Mike Carson:Yeah, there shouldn't be a need.
Mike Carson:It's one way that's like control has been.
Mike Carson:People have controlled people with this, you know, and, and really affected things.
Mike Carson:Like.
Mike Carson:So, yeah, like people should be free to own their own name.
Mike Carson:So that's.
Mike Carson:Anyway, that's.
Mike Carson:I have really strong conviction of that and that it's.
Mike Carson:I think it's so valuable that it's inevitable.
Mike Carson:And if it's not our protocol, space's protocol, there's going to be something else that does it eventually.
Josh Friedemann:So what would it look like?
Josh Friedemann:Let's just, you know, have here, for example, my first name, let's say Josh.
Josh Friedemann:So I would, if it's not already opened, which I guess, you know, it's not technically live yet, but I would open up an auction, it would be live for 10 days and anyone can bid on the name Josh.
Josh Friedemann:And then at the end, let's say that I win the bid, then I can sort of have that direct to whatever I want online or.
Josh Friedemann:Yeah.
Josh Friedemann:How exactly would that work?
Josh Friedemann:And then could it be kind of like the hub for a number of different locations I want to send people to.
Josh Friedemann:What would that look like?
Mike Carson:Yeah, I mean, right away, like people, if they downloaded our space Spaces client, our Space D client, which is what you use to bid in auctions and open auctions and stuff like that.
Mike Carson:Like right away I could send Bitcoin to you at Josh.
Mike Carson:Like I could just send it.
Mike Carson:And so that's the first like right away thing.
Mike Carson:We also released some open source software so you could like set it up with DNS and that's the data like you would set your DNS to that wouldn't be stored on chain.
Mike Carson:It's stored in like a peer to peer network.
Mike Carson:The library that we have is called fabric.
Mike Carson:It's in our GitHub repository.
Mike Carson:But yeah, so, and also an interesting thing about this is we build it in a scalable way so that top level spaces are auctioned on Bitcoin.
Mike Carson:But you can do subspaces.
Mike Carson:It's kind of like traditional domains, like there's.com, iO.org and stuff.
Mike Carson:Well, you can get top level spaces on.
Mike Carson:There's a limited number of top level spaces that you can get like at Bitcoin and the syntax we use instead of dot we use at.
Mike Carson:So it's like you could get at business or at, you know, podcast or at nostr or at Bitcoin and then you could sell subspaces under those.
Mike Carson:And each subspace we've designed in a way that it's completely decentralized.
Mike Carson:So not even you as the owner of at Bitcoin can take away or change or do anything to the subspace itself.
Mike Carson:So if I had Mike at Bitcoin, you couldn't you.
Mike Carson:It's completely mine and.
Mike Carson:But I.
Mike Carson:But so you can turn it into a business.
Mike Carson:You could sell like that and it can scale to like millions.
Mike Carson:You could have millions under.
Mike Carson:At Bitcoin, millions of subspaces.
Mike Carson:And it doesn't the we did it with zero knowledge proofs so that it's all verifiable with a hash.
Mike Carson:Like so there's very minimal data that's stored on the Bitcoin blockchain, but it's anchored in that security.
Mike Carson:So yeah.
Josh Friedemann:And who do you primarily see using this?
Josh Friedemann:Would this mostly be individuals or do you see this being something that larger businesses would try to take advantage of?
Josh Friedemann:And maybe in each case, how would you see that playing out?
Mike Carson:Well, I think I could see anywhere you're using names right now online, it's all centralized and controlled by somebody.
Mike Carson:So I see.
Mike Carson:You know, even just if it was only used for domain names, I see that as very valuable because you can host content whatever you want.
Mike Carson:Nobody can, nobody can control, take down your name or.
Mike Carson:But also like usernames, I think that's a really good use case like for social media.
Mike Carson:Like you could own a name and nobody could take it from you.
Mike Carson:Like Noster, you know, if you have like Josh at Noster, you can publish content under that name.
Mike Carson:People can find you there and nobody can take it away.
Mike Carson:It's yours.
Mike Carson:So that's another use case.
Mike Carson:I mean the other one is like sending payments.
Mike Carson:So that right now a lot of people, there are some.
Mike Carson:And there's even like a Bitcoin Bit353 which is using, is for human readable wallet addresses.
Mike Carson:But right now it's using DNS, which.
Mike Carson:So like a registrar.
Mike Carson:I mean, I know I worked in the traditional domain domain space and it's like a registrar, a registry.
Mike Carson:Like I can.
Mike Carson:People can.
Mike Carson:A lot of people have access to your domain name.
Mike Carson:So if you're accepting payments using, relying on DNS, you are taking a risk because if you get a lot of payments to that, you know, an employee at a registrar could change it to their address or something, so.
Mike Carson:Or they could just take the name if they don't like what you're taking.
Mike Carson:Money.
Mike Carson:It's like GoFundMe, you know, like when the Canadian truck drivers or whatever had that boycott and a lot of people sent them money, GoFundMe was like, you know what?
Mike Carson:We're not all that money you sent, we're just going to give it to other charities and stuff is.
Mike Carson:So it would be much, wouldn't it be much more cool if you could like send it to truckers at Bitcoin and then nobody's gonna, they got, you know, whoever controls that name gets the money and nobody can enter, nobody can stop it.
Josh Friedemann:If someone wants to take advantage of this in the early days, what would you recommend them to do for an individual?
Josh Friedemann:I guess in particular, if you think there's something that a business could take advantage of as well, that might be interesting.
Josh Friedemann:But what would be a strategic way for individuals to think about using the Spaces protocol in an optimized way?
Mike Carson:Well, I think first you want to try to get a space, you know, top level space.
Mike Carson:So I would go to spacesprotocol.org and download the software.
Mike Carson:We have a command line wallet you can use so you can download it and install the wallet.
Mike Carson:We're also going to have a GUI wallet very soon.
Mike Carson:Maybe at release we'll have that too.
Mike Carson:So it'll be much easier for people who aren't comfortable with command line.
Mike Carson:But yeah, get a wallet and then bid in some auctions.
Mike Carson:Get a name.
Mike Carson:I think early on there's going to be less people involved.
Mike Carson:So you probably be able to get a name for relatively less cost than later on if it becomes more popular.
Mike Carson:So I think getting a name because it's limited to 10 names per day, so there's only going to be 3,600 a year.
Mike Carson:So they're kind of rare.
Mike Carson:So anyway, getting a name I think is a way, I think also eventually we're gonna, we're gonna have a service, my company where you could, we'll do all the work so that you could sell subspaces.
Mike Carson:So if you get a good top level space like, I don't know, business bitcoin, crypto or something like that, then you could set it up so people could get like Mike at crypto or whatever and sell it so you could earn money that way.
Mike Carson:And so I think that's another way, I mean for.
Mike Carson:I would also love it if like developers started helping us, you know, integrating it into things like Nostr and stuff like that.
Mike Carson:And we have people on our Telegram channel who are interested to help and who have been helping.
Mike Carson:So that's another good place to join.
Mike Carson:You know, if you have any questions or anything you can, if you go to spaces, protocol.org, you can, we have a telegram link in the top corner.
Mike Carson:You can click there and join the Telegram group.
Josh Friedemann:This is going to be a slight pivot.
Josh Friedemann:But one of the interesting things I found out about you when I was looking at your bio for the first time is that you were really early on in the Lightning Network.
Josh Friedemann:And so I think it'd be interesting to hear your thoughts on being in so early on something that, you know, I probably, I don't think I was in Bitcoin at the time or really like knew anything about Bitcoin at the time.
Josh Friedemann:So I don't know how quickly people kind of jumped on the Lightning Network bandwagon.
Josh Friedemann:What was it like being in, on the Lightning Network in the early days and are there any parallels that you potentially see to spaces or is it too difficult to kind of use those two as analogies?
Mike Carson:No, I think it's good.
Mike Carson:I mean, yeah, Lightning, Lightning, when it first came out, well, it had a lot of buzz and it was really exciting.
Mike Carson:It was like another layer that you could do a lot more transactions and stuff.
Mike Carson:So it was really exciting, exciting thing and it was just happening.
Mike Carson:So you know, being a programmer and hacker and stuff, I, I wanted to try it out.
Mike Carson:So I, I mean I downloaded like, you know, the software and I, you know, was like on their IRC channel asking questions and they were really helpful and so I got, you know, a node set up and stuff.
Mike Carson:So I mean it's, it's cool.
Mike Carson:I mean that's, you know, that's a really cool thing about Bitcoin.
Mike Carson:It's like this hacker spirit that, you know, it's like we're all building this, you know, we're all doing this.
Mike Carson:So I think it's.
Mike Carson:Yeah, I think it's great.
Mike Carson:Just like jumping in, just jumping in and then, you know, just figuring, you know, figuring it out and seeing what it's all about.
Mike Carson:And I think it's the same with Spaces.
Mike Carson:Like, you know, there's people who are on the Telegram channel, like installing it and checking it out just because it's something new.
Josh Friedemann:So then I also saw that you were one of the first three people to purchase a physical item on the Lightning network.
Josh Friedemann:Can you go into detail as to what that looked like and what you purchased?
Mike Carson:I had, yeah, I had a node set up in like my attic and I.
Mike Carson:And like you couldn't use Lightning for much back then.
Mike Carson:I think the only thing you could.
Mike Carson:One server hosting company allowed you to pay by lightning.
Mike Carson:But then Blockstream set up a store so you could buy like stickers and stuff.
Mike Carson:And right when the store launched, I made a purchase right away and then I emailed them because it was the first time physical goods were being sold for light with a Lightning payment.
Mike Carson:So I just emailed them and asked was like, was I first?
Mike Carson:And they said no, I was third.
Mike Carson:But so, and I, and I'm pretty sure Jack Mellers was first and I don't know who was second.
Mike Carson:But yeah, I still have the stickers here somewhere.
Josh Friedemann:That's cool.
Josh Friedemann:And one thing we didn't, I don't think we've mentioned about spaces is that the only way you can purchase, at least it seems like from what I've checked out is using bitcoin.
Josh Friedemann:Can you use dollars as well or can you only purchase spaces name with.
Mike Carson:Bitcoin if you're doing the auction process, it's only with bitcoin if, and that's for top level spaces.
Mike Carson:Eventually we're going to set up a marketplace so maybe we'll allow, you know, people to sell their name for dollars.
Mike Carson:I don't know.
Mike Carson:I think at first it'll just be bitcoin like because you can do it without a third party.
Mike Carson:But also subspaces like if you sell like if you have at crypto or whatever and you decide to sell names under that, then yeah, you could buy that for.
Mike Carson:So you could buy like Josh at Bitcoin for, you know, just put a credit card or something like that.
Josh Friedemann:Well, any final thoughts before we finish up today?
Josh Friedemann:It's been, it's been interesting.
Josh Friedemann:It's one of those things where it's a little bit, it's a new project.
Josh Friedemann:People are going to be getting on the ground floor.
Josh Friedemann:There's always opportunities there and I'm looking forward to looking into it a little bit more myself.
Josh Friedemann:But any final thoughts before we finish up the interview today and where you'd like for people to go after listening to this conversation?
Mike Carson:Yeah, just check out spacesprotocol.org you can find me on Twitter if you go to cypherpunk.com I redirect that domain name to my Twitter.
Mike Carson:But yeah, but yeah, thanks for having me on the show.
Mike Carson:It's great to talk to you and thanks.
Josh Friedemann:Great.
Josh Friedemann:Well, Mike, thank you so much for your time today.
Josh Friedemann:It's been a pleasure.
Mike Carson:Yeah, me too.
Josh Friedemann:Well, friends, it's a wrap.
Josh Friedemann:Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Business Bitcoinization Show.
Josh Friedemann:If you want to reach out to either me or Mike, you can find those links down in the show notes.
Josh Friedemann:And be sure to check out spacesprotocol.org as always, keep building, keep growing, and until next time, keep living and leading.
Josh Friedemann:Well, thanks to no Waste, BTC Signs and username 404 for supporting the show on Fountain this week.
Josh Friedemann:If you would like to support the show as well, be sure to listen on the Fountain app and either stream sats as you listen or send a boost.
Josh Friedemann:And if you include a note with that boost, I'll be sure to read it on the show.
