Clockwise from top left: Specter DIY with "Shield Lite" smartcard reader, Specter DIY, SeedSigner+, Krux (M5StickV, TZT, Wonder K), CryptoGuide's SeedSigner + Satochip fork w/custom card reader, SeedSigner (default enclosure, deluxe metal enclosure), Jade DIY, original Jade, SeedSigner components, SeedSigner slim build, classic Blinky Specter DIY enclosure, Satochip Javacard, Specter DIY QR scanner module.
Since we all have trash attention spans now, I'll put the key part right here:
The Specter DIY, SeedSigner, and Krux teams (plus Satochip & Jade DIY experts, self-custody educators) gathered in São Paulo, Brazil to meet for the first time, learn from each other, and launch much deeper collaborations going forward. We will be sprinting ahead together like never before. The future of bitcoin self-custody via DIY signing devices is incredibly bright. We're going to conquer the world.
All three projects rely on the same "embit" library for our bitcoin operations, created by Stepan Snigirev. So while our projects are very different, we've always considered each other siblings due to our shared core library.
But a few years ago Stepan went through a brutal six month dev sprint. Feeling totally fried as a result, he walked away from bitcoin dev. Many of us were worried that we'd never see him again.
If you don't know Stepan, you can't understand what a loss this was. His technical mind is exceptional, of course. But it was his patience and kindness that guided me to start contributing to open-source projects in late 2019.
Over the ensuing years, embit held up extremely well and only needed occasional minor updates. But for the most part, Stepan was gone.
So imagine our collective thrill upon learning that Stepan said YES to the Brazil summit!
Stepan's top priority in attending was to give shared custody of embit to its new stakeholders. He didn't want to be a bottleneck to our collective progress. He also, understandably, wanted to free himself of most of the oversight burden.
A representative each from Specter DIY, SeedSigner, and Krux were nominated to become co-maintainers of the embit github repository. This handoff was a huge, symbolic milestone. A significant passing of the torch. Stepan's pioneering efforts paved the way for our projects to exist and flourish. And there we were, each team stepping forward to pick up the mantle.
By the way, what has Stepan been focusing on since stepping away from bitcoin? His first love: he's literally building quantum computers (yes, I asked, he said bitcoin is probably safe for the next 20-35 years).
Humans are so dumb. We can be so needlessly petty or jealous or selfish.
So you could imagine that these three DIY projects might have some awkward, conflicting feelings about one another. We exist as a niche within a niche and a scarcity mindset would say that there's only so much oxygen to go around. In a zero-sum world, if one gains some success, it takes away from the others.
Specter DIY launched the whole idea, but it was SeedSigner that built up the strongest twitter energy and podcaster attention.
Krux has seen support from parts of the bitcoin ecosystem that have rejected SeedSigner.
SeedSigner has (stubbornly?) rejected features that the others have embraced.
So, sure, let's gather all these teams together and see what happens!
Now, of course, there's some exaggeration here. As far as I'd seen, each project had been careful to be respectful of the others. But still, you just don't know what the vibe is going to be until we're all actually face-to-face.
We weren't quite sure who was going to run the show, but Stepan took the lead. We kicked off the first day planning how we'll all work together on embit's future. That set the tone. We were all very well aligned in how we thought it best to steward the library. No one worried if they had enough influence. There was no jockeying. No politicking. No stupid human stuff whatsoever.
Instead there was shared praise for each of the projects' nominees to co-maintain embit. Each person brought forth was a powerhouse. Embit is in very, very good hands.
Then over the course of the four day summit and lots of shared lunches, dinners, morning coffee runs, Uber rides, and exploring São Paulo together, we saw that even us weirdo nerds can bond and build friendships like normal human beings. 😂
Aside from the three DIY teams, we had CryptoGuide join us who has built the most successful fork of SeedSigner thus far. His fork brings Satochip smartcard functionality to SeedSigner. He even developed his own custom add-on board to read the cards.
Lots of people struggle with the fact that SeedSigner doesn't have a secure element. The Satochip smartcard is itself a secure element, but it has no screen for a user to interact with. Bringing Satochip together with SeedSigner is seen by many as a perfect marriage. Though note that even here Specter DIY is the true pioneer as it has had optional smartcard support for a number of years.
We also had Lawrence Nahum, former CTO of Blockstream, who shared his deep expertise on the tech behind the Blockstream Jade. By the way, despite being a retail product, the Jade has a natural fit with the summit because you can build a DIY Jade!
A number of educators, self-custody advocates, and more technical experts (miniscript!) rounded out the group to share their insights.
I realized later that the four core members of the SeedSigner team were the only Americans. The Krux team is primarily Brazilians while the Specter DIY founders are Russian expats. That probably has a lot to do with why the different projects have been imbued with such different core philosophies. The other attendees came from Canada, Germany, Italy, Switzerland. We also had a super privacy-conscious anon dev who participated remotely from, well, literally no one even knows.
Link: https://github.com/kdmukai/article-diy-signing-device-summit/blob/main/article.md
The DIY Signing Device Revolution is Just Beginning
Many projects, one team
https://github.com/kdmukai/article-diy-signing-device-summit/raw/main/img/hero.jpg
Clockwise from top left: Specter DIY with "Shield Lite" smartcard reader, Specter DIY, SeedSigner+, Krux (M5StickV, TZT, Wonder K), CryptoGuide's SeedSigner + Satochip fork w/custom card reader, SeedSigner (default enclosure, deluxe metal enclosure), Jade DIY, original Jade, SeedSigner components, SeedSigner slim build, classic Blinky Specter DIY enclosure, Satochip Javacard, Specter DIY QR scanner module.
Since we all have trash attention spans now, I'll put the key part right here:
The Specter DIY, SeedSigner, and Krux teams (plus Satochip & Jade DIY experts, self-custody educators) gathered in São Paulo, Brazil to meet for the first time, learn from each other, and launch much deeper collaborations going forward. We will be sprinting ahead together like never before. The future of bitcoin self-custody via DIY signing devices is incredibly bright. We're going to conquer the world.
Why bring these teams together?
All three projects rely on the same "embit" library for our bitcoin operations, created by Stepan Snigirev. So while our projects are very different, we've always considered each other siblings due to our shared core library.
https://github.com/kdmukai/article-diy-signing-device-summit/raw/main/img/stepan.png
But a few years ago Stepan went through a brutal six month dev sprint. Feeling totally fried as a result, he walked away from bitcoin dev. Many of us were worried that we'd never see him again.
If you don't know Stepan, you can't understand what a loss this was. His technical mind is exceptional, of course. But it was his patience and kindness that guided me to start contributing to open-source projects in late 2019.
Over the ensuing years, embit held up extremely well and only needed occasional minor updates. But for the most part, Stepan was gone.
https://github.com/kdmukai/article-diy-signing-device-summit/raw/main/img/embit_commits.png
So imagine our collective thrill upon learning that Stepan said YES to the Brazil summit!
Stepan's top priority in attending was to give shared custody of embit to its new stakeholders. He didn't want to be a bottleneck to our collective progress. He also, understandably, wanted to free himself of most of the oversight burden.
A representative each from Specter DIY, SeedSigner, and Krux were nominated to become co-maintainers of the embit github repository. This handoff was a huge, symbolic milestone. A significant passing of the torch. Stepan's pioneering efforts paved the way for our projects to exist and flourish. And there we were, each team stepping forward to pick up the mantle.
By the way, what has Stepan been focusing on since stepping away from bitcoin? His first love: he's literally building quantum computers (yes, I asked, he said bitcoin is probably safe for the next 20-35 years).
Sibling Rivalry?
Humans are so dumb. We can be so needlessly petty or jealous or selfish.
So you could imagine that these three DIY projects might have some awkward, conflicting feelings about one another. We exist as a niche within a niche and a scarcity mindset would say that there's only so much oxygen to go around. In a zero-sum world, if one gains some success, it takes away from the others.
Specter DIY launched the whole idea, but it was SeedSigner that built up the strongest twitter energy and podcaster attention.
Krux has seen support from parts of the bitcoin ecosystem that have rejected SeedSigner.
SeedSigner has (stubbornly?) rejected features that the others have embraced.
So, sure, let's gather all these teams together and see what happens!
Now, of course, there's some exaggeration here. As far as I'd seen, each project had been careful to be respectful of the others. But still, you just don't know what the vibe is going to be until we're all actually face-to-face.
It turns out: the vibes were incredible.
https://github.com/kdmukai/article-diy-signing-device-summit/raw/main/img/group_photo.jpg
We weren't quite sure who was going to run the show, but Stepan took the lead. We kicked off the first day planning how we'll all work together on embit's future. That set the tone. We were all very well aligned in how we thought it best to steward the library. No one worried if they had enough influence. There was no jockeying. No politicking. No stupid human stuff whatsoever.
Instead there was shared praise for each of the projects' nominees to co-maintain embit. Each person brought forth was a powerhouse. Embit is in very, very good hands.
Then over the course of the four day summit and lots of shared lunches, dinners, morning coffee runs, Uber rides, and exploring São Paulo together, we saw that even us weirdo nerds can bond and build friendships like normal human beings. 😂
But Wait, There Were More!
Aside from the three DIY teams, we had CryptoGuide join us who has built the most successful fork of SeedSigner thus far. His fork brings Satochip smartcard functionality to SeedSigner. He even developed his own custom add-on board to read the cards.
https://github.com/kdmukai/article-diy-signing-device-summit/raw/main/img/custom_shieldsigner2.jpg https://github.com/kdmukai/article-diy-signing-device-summit/raw/main/img/custom_shieldsigner1.jpg
Lots of people struggle with the fact that SeedSigner doesn't have a secure element. The Satochip smartcard is itself a secure element, but it has no screen for a user to interact with. Bringing Satochip together with SeedSigner is seen by many as a perfect marriage. Though note that even here Specter DIY is the true pioneer as it has had optional smartcard support for a number of years.
We also had Lawrence Nahum, former CTO of Blockstream, who shared his deep expertise on the tech behind the Blockstream Jade. By the way, despite being a retail product, the Jade has a natural fit with the summit because you can build a DIY Jade!
https://github.com/kdmukai/article-diy-signing-device-summit/raw/main/img/ytcryptoguide_diyjade.jpg
How-To video courtesy of CryptoGuide
A number of educators, self-custody advocates, and more technical experts (miniscript!) rounded out the group to share their insights.
I realized later that the four core members of the SeedSigner team were the only Americans. The Krux team is primarily Brazilians while the Specter DIY founders are Russian expats. That probably has a lot to do with why the different projects have been imbued with such different core philosophies. The other attendees came from Canada, Germany, Italy, Switzerland. We also had a super privacy-conscious anon dev who participated remotely from, well, literally no one even knows.