Welcome to another round of Bitcoin News’ interview series where we dive into the stories of Bitcoin operators to help readers get a better understanding of what makes Bitcoin businesses “tick”.
Our goal is to put together the most in-depth set of interviews with similar themes to provide insight into what it takes to run a Bitcoin company and the ethos and values of different Bitcoin firms in the industry.
From Bitcoin OG’s to Startups to Operators, we dive into discussions with anyone and everyone in the Bitcoin world to help provide newcomers with a fun and interesting Bitcoin encyclopedia of knowledge and wisdom that may one day help them should they wish to contribute to Bitcoin.
Read on below for our latest interview with Joltz co-founder Ian Major.
Bitcoin News: When was the first moment you became passionate about Bitcoin? Where were you and what makes that moment memorable?
Ian: My first exposure to Bitcoin was in 2013 as something a friend was day-trading at the time. As someone who knew the probabilities around traditional gambling, I thought it wise to avoid it… whoops.
Fast forward to 2016-2017 and I had been studying how money actually works and started learning the horrors of socialized money and central banking. Right on schedule, bitcoin started ripping and I thought to myself “there must be something more to this than just an investment”.
That hunch proved right, and the years of rabbit hole burrowing that ensued strengthened my conviction that this was the most important thing in our lifetimes and that I had to spend all my working time focusing on it.
Bitcoin News: What do you interpret to be Bitcoin’s core philosophy? How do you best embody this ethos on a regular basis?
Ian: For me, above all else, Bitcoin is truth. Truth is not just a set of facts that accurately represents reality, but also a method by which one can verifiably prove that a set of facts actually represents reality and that others have arrived at that same conclusion.
Shared & accurate truth is powerful, especially in our modern age. Regardless of your political affiliations, good luck getting truthful information from any mainstream news sources.
Social media algorithms and censorship shape your beliefs however they see fit. Instead of admitting to ourselves and each other what can often be uncomfortable truths, we tend to mask them with more comfortable, politically-correct sound-bites that keep everyone in their cozy thought bubbles.
I try to embody Bitcoin’s ethos of truth by admitting to myself or my friends or fiance or family or team when something is not going as planned;
by leaving up and not censoring comments on my YouTube channel even if they’re negative 🙂 —unless they’re an outright scam/spam— and by trying to get outside of the thought bubbles I know I occupy. I’m not perfect, but I’m trying.
Bitcoin News: In your particular Bitcoin niche, how do you measure success? Which singular factor contributes most to achieving this metric?
Ian: At the company level for Joltz, in our world of Bitcoin wallet infrastructure and payments, we measure success by the number of users using Bitcoin self-custodially and the amount of payment value being transferred.
The singular factor is and always has been UX which is why we’re working hard to solve as many UX challenges as possible that have historically risen when using the Lightning Network self-custodially.
At the individual level for my YouTube channel, it’s the number of people I can help learn the practical skills and tools of Bitcoin.
Bitcoin News: Where do you see the greatest potential for innovation within the Bitcoin wallet ecosystem?
Ian: I’m obviously biased, but what we’re building at Joltz will make some of the amazing swap technology that Muun Wallet pioneered scale significantly better in a higher-fee environment.
So you end up giving the user a non-custodial Lightning experience without any of the channel liquidity headache in a way that can actually scale.
Additionally, we’ve built the first wallet SDK that supports Taproot Assets which brings stablecoins to the Lightning Network, giving users the utility of being able to denominate their non-custodial payments in both bitcoin and other units of account that they may have no option but to use.
Other areas of innovation I’m excited about are around secure backup methods that don’t require the user to record a seed phrase, including some of the novel work teams like Elysium Labs are doing.
Bitcoin News: Would you consider yourself a Bitcoin maximalist? If yes, why? If no, why not?
Ian: I’m sure different people have different definitions, but “maximalist” in my experience implies an almost moral element to it all. Like if you even dare to peer over into what these other ecosystems are doing, then that means you’re a shitcoiner and you’re bad.
Or remember when so-called “maximalists” were cheerleading for government regulation over other crypto assets? Truly appalling, statist stuff. So I’d consider myself more of a “Bitcoin Centrist” or “Bitcoin Pragmatist” which is the idea that:
(1) Bitcoin is unique, one-of-a-kind, and irreplicable;
(2) there are good ideas like zk-tech that were pioneered in other crypto ecosystems;
(3) eventually sufficiently good ideas will come to Bitcoin; and
(4) people are free to do what they want and that will probably include degen speculation if human history is any guide.
Bitcoin News: As a Bitcoin startup, what’s the largest challenge that Joltz is currently facing? What’s the one thing that would solve/mitigate this?
Ian: Fundraising is a huge challenge for any startup, and I think this is particularly true in the Bitcoin space. There are crypto startups out there raising millions of dollars with an idea because they have a token, while solid post-product / post-revenue Bitcoin teams are bootstrapping and scraping by.
At the same time, this somewhat makes sense; many of the business models of Bitcoin startups (Joltz included) are nascent and so building early revenue traction is key to de-risk investment for investors.
With the launch of Taproot Assets, we expect Lightning Network activity to grow by at least an order of magnitude which will help not only Joltz but also many other startups building towards this next chapter (payments) of Bitcoin.
Bitcoin News: Who are the most impactful Bitcoin relationships you have in the ecosystem and how do you maintain/nurture them over time?
Ian: Well for one, some of my YouTube subscribers have been following me since day 1, and it has been incredible to watch some of them grow in their Bitcoin journey.
Conferences are another great way to meet people and nurture relationships. I would particularly recommend conferences that are off the beaten trail.
As an example, I went to the Bitcoin Freedom Festival in Costa Rica in early 2024 and it was a one-of-a-kind experience with an amazing group of Bitcoiners. Don’t fade local meetups either – you’ll be surprised at who you might have in your own backyard.
Bitcoin News: How does Bitcoin’s global nature impact the competitiveness of your firm’s particular niche?
Ian: Bitcoin is unique both in terms of its general borderlessness but also in that it and even some of its higher-level layers (e.g. Lightning) are open-source protocols. We try to balance two simultaneous truths:
(1) it’s exceedingly unlikely that you have a truly novel idea; but
(2) ultimately what matters is execution. Your edge can be a particular geographic market you know better than others, a particular user segment, etc.
Finding that unique competitive advantage is one of the most important things you’ll do as a Bitcoin founder and it’s only something that you can test & learn your way to figuring out.
Bitcoin News: What’s the most impactful product/service on Joltz’s roadmap at the moment and why?
Ian: Our most impactful product/service that we’re shipping in the coming weeks is our non-custodial SDK that supports on-chain Bitcoin, Lightning, and Taproot Assets.
With our tech, we can bring non-custodial Bitcoin, Lightning, and stablecoin (on Lightning) payments to any app or platform and solve many of the UX pain points that historically made non-custodial Lightning challenging.
Bitcoin News: What advice would you give to a fresh Bitcoiner aiming to leave their mark on the ecosystem?
Ian: Be humble! It is overwhelmingly unlikely that you’re the first person with whatever idea you have. Take the time to study and figure out what has been done, why it did/didn’t work, and then take decisive action because the space moves fast.
Ship and iterate frequently with your followers or customers, and know that your first adopters/fans are going to be very different than the next tranche and the next after that.
Said another way, an enthusiastic early group of users is fantastic and a necessary starting point but is likely far from a deep product-market fit. How you discern where you are (and what you do in response to where you are) in that progression is the art in all of this.
Bitcoin News: When the history of Bitcoin is written, how would you like your contribution to be remembered?
Ian: We hope to be but a small part of the movement of builders and entrepreneurs who helped take Bitcoin from merely a store of value to a true medium of exchange and permissionless payment settlement network for billions of people.
Bitcoin News: If you could go back in time and ask Satoshi just one question, what would it be?
Ian: What is the biggest reason you think Bitcoin could fail?