ABOUT THE ARTIST
"When I started working for money I became interested in the 2008 crash & thought there needed to be something better. This is where bitcoin grabbed my attention."
Rootzoll is a prolific Berlin based Bitcoin Developer, who puts superhuman amounts of energy & talent into RaspiBlitz.com – a hugely respected Lightning & Full Node open source project. He’s involved with Fulmo, an open source company dedicated to research, development and consultancy for the Bitcoin Lightning Network. He also runs Lightning Hackday events in Berlin & beyond.
THE INTERVIEW 1/2
After his studies, when needing to go out and earn a crust, he became more and more interested in the concept of money. Witnessing the 2008 crash fuelled this interest further and sparked ideas of money without banks.
"Bitcoin is Prototyping a Better World.
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All of that formed the perfect, fertile ground for when he first encountered Bitcoin a little later. Here was a manifestation of these ideas of a sovereign money. For the first time, there was a chance of something killing the monopoly on the production of money. Separating Money & State. For someone who had long been harbouring these thoughts, the wait was over. Bitcoin had appeared & with it hope for a better world.
"On a social level bitcoin has been a very interesting journey. I’m normally more of a nerdy person who likes to be by myself a lot but meeting Bitcoiners has changed me.
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Bitcoin changes and challenges a lot of previously held ideas, habits, behaviour etc. Most of us feel it. Most of us have seen changes in our personal lives because of Bitcoin. From spending habits to diet. From changing to a delayed gratification lifestyle to political views and fitness. For Rootzoll one of these behavioural changes was born out of going to Bitcoin Meetups and Conferences. Selfbankt has had the pleasure of meeting Rootzol both at 2019’s first Lightning Conference in Berlin and at a Cardiff Meetup.
The projects he worked on also gained momentum after engaging with the community at events like this and resulted in more robust code too.
THE INTERVIEW 2/2
"It really developed from the lightning hack days & the decision to learn together with the community.
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RaspiBlitz is one of the longest standing node projects & comes feature packed with a focus on the Lightning Network. It boasts rock sold uptime and well tested update procedures. People trust the Blitz with major funds. It’s other major contributor is @openoms, another legend in the community, whose privacy focus incorporated JoinMarket’s CoinJoin functionality into the Blitz recently
For those of you who don’t yet run a node, RaspiBlitz comes recommended by 21ism. Our BTC/LN webstore runs on our own Blitz hosted IP2TOR BTCPayserver & WooCommerce stack. We encourage you to join & grow the Lightning Network and help bootstrap Bitcoin’s passionate Circular Economy. There really is nothing like it.
"Everybody knows not your keys not your bitcoin but I’d like to add, not your node not your rules."
RaspiBlitz is DIY Lightning Node based on LND running together with a Bitcoin-Fullnode on a RaspberryPi 3/4 – with a display for easy setup & monitoring.
It’s mainly targeted for learning how to run your own node. Not your Node, Not your Rules. Discover & develop the growing ecosystem of the Lightning Network by becoming a part of it. Build it as part of a workshop or as a weekend project yourself.
RaspiBlitz features include : RTL, Thunderhub, Electrum Server, BTC Pay Server, BTC Explorer, LN Bits, Specter Desktop, Mempool Viewer, Joinmarket, Loop, IP2Tor, Remote access via Tor & Touchscreen display.
The part alone cost around $200USD & GitHub setup guide is available from raspiblitz.com where you can also buy one prebuilt.
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