Founder: Ivan Kaludis
Date of Establishment: 2019, Block 563345; It was merged in 2023
Headquarters location: No headquarters; Quite far
The amount of Bitcoin held in the vault: Not disclosed
Number of Employees: 2
website: https://zeusln.com/
Public or private? private
On April 26, 2024, Evan Kaloudis drew a line in the sand.
Following the news of the arrest of Samourai wallet developers Phoenix Wallet is discontinuing service to US customersHe has publicly declared that he will fight hard for the continued existence of Bitcoin and Lightning Network wallets like the one he created, ZEUS.
https://t.co/n0ye9TcNYd pic.twitter.com/Me5ixLeBT0
– Evan Kaloudis (@evankaloudis) April 26, 2024
He said the right to keep your bitcoin in the United States must be defended at all costs.
Kaludis' words cut through the tension in the Bitcoin space, especially on X, where the sense of desperation was palpable.
A week and a half after Kaloudis made his profound statement, I caught up with him virtually to learn more about his plans Zeus – One of the most dynamic Lightning wallets on the market today – as we move into an era where the powers that be seem to want all bitcoins in a walled garden and tied to user identities.
Below is a transcript of our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity.
Frank Curva: What is ZEUS's mission and how does it differ from other Lightning wallets?
Ivan Kaludis: Zeus really doesn't like to compromise.
We've seen a lot of portfolios that will make swaps for various reasons. We've seen wallets that just want to provide a clearer user experience at the expense of self-protection or privacy. We've seen wallets from Silicon Valley that bring you closer to a walled garden.
Zeus wants to empower you to make Bitcoin payments your way, whether you're just starting out and want to run a full Lightning node in your pocket (Editor's note: ZEUS enables you to run a Lightning node on your phone) or, if you're a more seasoned veteran, and have a full node running at home. Maybe it is umbrella or Start9or maybe you're running something in the cloud using Voltage — You can connect to ZEUS using that too.
There are multiple ways to contact. There are many backends that we support. We just want to enable people to make Lightning payments as freely as possible, with as few intermediaries as possible and as privately as possible.
Curva: Due to the recent crackdown on Samourai developers which was followed by Phoenix halting its services to US customers and subsequently… Wasabi Wallet is shutting down its coin joining serviceDo you feel it's inevitable that the authorities will target Zeus at some point?
Calodys: I think there's a really good chance that Zeus will be targeted in the future. It is almost inevitable unless the outlook for Bitcoin in this country changes radically.
The organizers have no idea how the accelerator network works. It can be interpreted in many different ways. But they know that when they want to go down with the turnbuckles, they have to go down hard.
This really helps put things into perspective for us as developers and people providing products and services. We still have a long way to go despite the great strides we have made in the past six or seven years.
Curva: It's interesting how Bitcoin's price rise seems to have little to do with people adopting it as a means of exchange.
Calodys: What is the general use case for Bitcoin right now? They are just people trading them like stocks or using them as an entry tool to gamble on coins and memes in this cycle. People don't fully understand technology. Meanwhile, the people at the top see the writing on the wall and are trying to nip it in the bud as best they can – the means of exchange are actually their biggest threat.
The Michael Saylors of the world, the Larry Phoenixes of the world, the people who offer ETFs and who stand to benefit only from the number going up would love nothing more than if everyone who goes into them were carefully regulated and accounted for, KYC and KYC. “Know your customer” everything, and if it doesn’t take hold as something that people keep to themselves or use as a medium of exchange.
Curva: Is this why in the latest iteration of ZEUS you put the node in the phone rather than assuming that people would run a node at home and then use the ZEUS as a remote control of some sort? In other words, are you trying to make it easier for people to use Bitcoin as a means of exchange?
Calodys: We've really bridged the gap for them by putting it in the phone and offering the same functionality that a remote user would enjoy.
I think ZEUS will develop very radically, but our priority and hard line are self-custody, not KYC.
My preference would be to either stop offering these Bitcoin payment channels in certain jurisdictions – we already have to comply with OFAC – or close the company.
We've built such a great product that it empowers so many people even without it Olympus (a well-connected Lightning node run by ZEUS) and our LSP services, I'm sure there will be thousands of people still using the software. I'm sure people will continue to contribute to it on an open source level to further improve it.
Curva: It's frustrating to think that someone like you would consider having to walk away from your company. There are not many people in this space who can build what you have built and it makes me think that the next person with your skills might consider not starting out as a founder in this space.
Calodys: With this crackdown, we have seen a real chilling effect. It's a real match for the opposing side, and there's certainly potential for things to develop and for more people to exit the market.
I truly hope that my actions will encourage others to stand up and not restrain themselves or preemptively leave the markets.
On the other hand, if you talk to people who are developing the space or creating their own startups, they already know that what they're doing is crazy. They know that, “Hey, I can go work at one of these FAANG companies and make $200 or $300 easily, and I'll make a fraction of that with little chance of success if I go and work on Bitcoin and try to start my own company.”
But that's the way it is with Bitcoin developers – despite all the challenges ahead of them and the mounting pressures, there's nothing else they'd rather be doing. It's a successful journey, but if it works, the whole world will change. So, I think there will still be a lot of crazy developers.
Curva: Do you think these developers would be less publicly hostile after seeing what happened to Samurai developers and how prosecutors are using tweet Where they welcomed Russian oligarchs to use their service in the case against them? Do you think it is better to continue to attack verbally or to keep your head down and work quietly?
Calodys: Man, it's so much fun when you go all out, you know? And the samurai guys built an entire brand around it. They have basically gathered an army of die-hard fans and users which has largely contributed to their success.
If you are a sleeper and have the ability, please keep talking nonsense. But if you're a public figure, it wouldn't be wise to poke the bear or kick a hornet's nest, Satoshi said.
We need to start thinking more critically. There are still many concessions to be made in the battles taking place now. You have to be strategic to win the war.
Curva: Let's move on to something a little more optimistic – your plans for ZEUS – and let me ask you some questions that some of the public at Nostr and X asked me to ask you. Are you exploring ways for self-custodial users to receive payments without initially having to fund a channel with Bitcoin and what would this look like?
Calodys: Great question. On the autonomy front, there are a lot of challenges. We have people like Super testnet Who have found really innovative ways to do things autonomously with payments, like we did with Title lightning Zeus And things like that are new Hedgehog Protocol.
The problem of pre-financing still exists. It is a difficult challenge that we are trying to address.
I think eventually a lot of changes need to happen at the protocol level for Bitcoin. These are the things we are most optimistic about – the things that still enable us to self-preserve. We're really optimistic about the covenants. We're really bullish on coin sets and pay sets. things like that Astronomy Beautiful novel.
We really don't want people to break the bank to set up payment channels. As the price of Bitcoin continues to rise, it becomes more expensive, at least in dollar terms, to open your first channel and use ZEUS in a self-custodial manner.
We want to try to avoid going forward, but it's going to take more and more public people paying to say, “Hey, this ossification push is stupid. It's crippling Bitcoin.” And the Larry Finks, Michael Saylor types we talked about earlier would love nothing more than if the core code base and protocol stayed the same. Think about who would really benefit if things remained this way.
Let's be open as we move forward and see what other proposals come in the future, because there is a lot we need to do to expand the work.
Curva: When can you bring tethering to ZEUS?
Calodys: Connectivity is (some of) the things we depend on LND to. I'd like to bring him, but who knows? Maybe we can see this in basic Lightning interfaces as well. It's probably easier to see this sooner than the knot embedded in Zeus. More than what it enables users (to do), it will really benefit us as a Lightning service provider in reducing costs.
Curva: In what ways does ZEUS integrate with Nostr?
Calodys: Today Zeus has two integrations of Nostr.
We have a contact book in Zeus from which you can import all your contacts from Nostr. This gives you a great way to easily send your payments to people you follow. In this way, it's a bit like decentralized Cash App or Venmo decentralized payments for those in the know in the US.
We also use Nostr to power a self-custodial Lightning address service, which is the first of its kind on a mobile wallet powered by the amazing Super Testnet. ZapLocker Specifications and use of Nostr keys is mainly used to log out on invoices that our server presents to users. So, if you have a compatible ZapLocker wallet, you can say, “Oh yeah, this is a split invoice, it's signed by Frank and I'm going to press this button to make sure that I'm actually looking at Frank's profile and that it's really him and who signed it.”
Curva: With all the innovations you bring to ZEUS, do you keep current regulations in mind while building or do you just build and hope you don't break any laws?
Calodys: We have to act in good faith. We have already put measures in place that will prevent bad actors from using our system.
We'll probably have to show the regulators, if they come knocking, that it's not just a free-for-all here. We have data that can help us identify bad users and remove them from our platform.
I'm not going to say, “Hey, Russian oligarchs, come use Olympus,” because you won't get very far if you try to do that. ZEUS is not conducive to that at all.
What ZEUS prefers is being able to make your daily payments freely.
What guides us are our hard lines, and our hard lines are self-custody, not KYC. We do not make payments on behalf of users. We only enable them to make these payments for themselves.
If we are classified as a financial services company, everything else goes, from individual Lightning node operators to potential miners and even the self-custodial itself. As I said in my post, this is the hill to die on – self-guardianship.
The alternative is too bleak to even contemplate, and it will take some individuals, largely in the United States, to stand up.