About The Artist
Bitcoiners are not afraid to dream big.
To most the idea that a small group of ungovernable misfits can successfully and peacefully transfer the balance of power back to the people is crazy.
I like crazy and, if you are reading this, I imagine you do too. Today anyone willing to take personal responsibility can hold and secure the keys to freedom. Harnessing and speaking the truth, channeling freedom and caring about the future, all while taking pride in being responsible for yourself and those you love, is somehow seen as heterodox ideas. That seems to be what is deemed crazy in the world we are living in today. If so I most definitely identify as crazy.
Pronouns: Fuck/Off
At first, taking full responsibility for my finances, personal information and freedom seemed daunting. I’ve had moments of borderline fear when learning to securely hold keys to a future I desire. I worried it would not be manageable for me or that it would be so stressful that I wouldn’t enjoy the process. Stress no more, we’ve got a space packed to the rafters with crazies. Companies and people who do very little else than ponder the ways in which we can all become more free, self-sovereign and divorced from the legacy madness that surrounds us. Companies like Coinkite. People like Rodolfo Novak.
"Its just so fucking awesome man to wake up and go shit post with a bunch of optimists, people who want to work, take responsibility and care about the future."
COINKITE & THEIR PHILOSOPY
Rodolfo is the CEO & Co-founder of Coinkite and has been involved in bitcoin since 2011.
He began building bitcoin-only hardware because there was nothing on the market that met his needs. Bitcoiners love the Coldcard hardware wallet and for good reason, When it comes to features, updates and security, nothing really comes close. The work ethic and thought that goes into the features we all love, is relentless.
The don’t trust verify ethos has never been more achievable than with features like dice rolls, for added entropy, and ability to verify software every step of the way. Everything you could possibly need to become a sovereign individual is available at Coinkite, including seed plates, cold power, micro SD’s and dice.
The Coldcard way is to strike a balance between hand holding its users to avoid loss while allowing users all the functionality they could possibly desire. They don’t dumb it down too much because they don’t want to keep their users dumb. This is a philosophy I love. Offer enough to test yourself and learn but make the barrier of entry broad enough to give as many people as possible a chance to embark on the journey. No, it might not the simplest option out there, and maybe this isn’t a product for you grandma, but that’s ok.
"It’s always about plausible deniability, creating a fucking labyrinth of features where no amount of reading our docs will help the bad guys. "
I now know how wrong I was to feel anxious when I first set out on my own journey. Before you set everything up for the first time and make your first transfer, yes, it can be nerve racking. However, it’s so much easier than you think at first and you know what? I think even your grandma could do it if you took her through it, actually.
Its invigorating to boot and thanks to the incredible humour and beautiful design its also both fun and a pleasure to learn about.
CULTURE AND CREATIVITY
It’s hard to describe bitcoin culture to anyone who isn’t part of the space but to me it’s the coolest counter culture. A network of people who build, create, collaborate and dunk on no coiners while having fun not staying poor. Few companies embody these cultural idiosyncrasies more than Coinkite. They build the best hardware on the planet and are really serious about helping people secure their precious sats but there is balance to the seriousness. Rodolfo’s sense of humour and personality can be seen across their product range.
"Im just happy that people have fun with our products, they have some personality. "
Anyone who owns any of their products will know not only how cool and beautifully designed they are but also how feature rich they have become. They certainly seem creatively restless and very productive over there at Coinkite. We consider ourselves ideas people too at 21ism. We have regular meetings about various things that we are building and it can be hard to keep track of them all. Somehow you have to flesh out the raw ideas, let them air cure for a while and see what still looks good enough to put on the grill afterwards. Hmmm, I think the meat analogies still need some work… What sometimes seems like dead cert sparks of genius sometimes turn out not to light any fires whatsoever and other times it’s the idea that doesn’t move you at all, that over the course of the next few days unravel something bigger and won’t leave you until you do something about it.
"Most ideas come from me and Peter talking on the phone, I just thought of this….. is this awesome or retarded? If they are good ideas we build it."
DO ONE THING WELL
Rodolfo explained to me during our interview that a lot of their products and features somehow originate from being lazy. Not sure lazy is really the word to describe the work process of two such illustrious creators but it may be part of the reason they sell you the hardware only and allow you to choose a wallet like Spector or sparrow to connect to as well as your own node. The main reason though is that they want to do one thing very well and allow other projects to focus on the software. This is refreshing to see rather than the closed loop systems and web interfaces of their competitors. To many people and companies spread themselves too thin resulting in inferior products and ultimately a shorter life cycle for the business. It’s a tough one to bridge sometimes though. You think big and ambitiously and want to add to what you offer without watering down what you’re doing already. Without sacrificing what you have worked for and achieved so far.
Outside of and building hardware Rodolfo also loves domain hoarding, meat feast and footwear so normie it seems heterodox. He also takes an interest in the NGU side of bitcoin, has launched paysbitcoin.org – a webpage tracking the major companies that offer compensation in bitcoin – as well as bitcointreasuries.org, which lists the major companies that have allocated part of their treasuries to BTC. It is rumoured the site gave Tesla the final push after their master of coin realised they had an allocation for ants, to channel Ben Kaufmann.
The space is better for having Rodolfo in it and we are more secure and sovereign for having Coinkite pushing freedom hardware. We are proud to be featuring Rodolfo for this block and long may his inspiring work ethic, building, shitposting and domain hoarding continue. Less of the crocks though, mate.
Listen to his audio interview at the top of this page and if you don’t already ago follow him on Twitter @nvk
IMPRESSION
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