Zima Red ep 122: David & Chris - Lit: Decentralized Access Control For The Internet
Primer: Access control is the ability to decide who has access to a specific thing. Traditionally, access control tends to be centralized. Learn how David and Chris are trying to decentralize access control with Lit Protocol and its use cases in this episode of the Zima Red podcast.
Background
Chris
Started mining Bitcoin in 2011
Thought it might be a scam and sold all of his Bitcoin
In 2013, he wanted to store the remaining Bitcoin he had securely
Created a Raspberry Pi that prints out a Bitcoin paper wallet
Started going to Bitcoin meetups, where he met Dave
David
When he was 16, he came across the notion of the accelerating rate of technological change
Started following Hacker News to follow the latest news on technology
Moved to the Bay Area and met Chris in 2014
Found out about Bitcoin and Ethereum
How Did Chris Learned About Bitcoin In 2011?
Think it was from the website Slashdot
Storing Bitcoin In 2013
Wanted to find a secure way to store his remaining Bitcoin
At that time, the gold standard was a paper wallet
A paper wallet has 2 QR codes on it:
One for the wallet address
The other is the private key
Bitcoinpaperwallet.com offered users the ability to print their paper wallet but it got hacked
Printing your paper wallet from a regular computer is dangerous as there might be a virus on it
Spun up his own Linux machine and installed the Bitcoin software on it
Realized nobody will use crypto if it’s this difficult
“I realized nobody's gonna do this. Like, if you have to spend a Saturday to use crypto, cryptos never gonna work. And I started thinking, like, there's got to be an easier way to do this.”
- Chris Cassano
Was into hobbyist hardware at that time. Created an air-gapped device that prints the public-private key pair
Built 500 of those devices and sold them
David’s Understanding Of The Accelerating Tech Trend
Humans perceive and predict things linearly
We don’t have an intuitive sense of exponential growth
Bitcoin opened his eyes to sovereign cash and sound money
Meeting Each Other
Were friends for several years before they started working together
Started their first crypto endeavour in 2018 — building Gumroad on Ethereum
Shut it down after 1 year
Subsequently, they spun up a fully custodial NFT marketplace. However, they were looking for something more
Chris was involved in a Tezos marketplace called Hic et Nunc
Hic et Nunc enables people to make HTML NFTs
“We started to conceptualize an NFT as a portal, as a browser window that exists in kind of like a platformless way.”
- David Sneider
Started to think of how to make NFTs unlockable
Came up with Lit Protocol, a decentralized access control protocol
The idea was to have a network custody or steward a distributed secret in perpetuity
What Is Access Control?
The ability to decide who has access to a specific thing
Lit Protocol is focused on access control through encryption and on-chain credentials
Lit Protocol enables you to define who is able to decrypt the data without knowing who the specific party is (e.g. everyone in this DAO can decrypt the data)
Why Does Access Control Need To Be Decentralized?
Many people use Signal for encrypted messaging
In the P2P context, the sender encrypts a message to the recipient’s public key
The recipient decrypts it with their private key
Can think of Signal-like encryption as closed privacy and decentralized access control as open privacy
Designed the Ready Player One test, where someone could set up access control conditions, hide a valuable prize, and leave the picture if they wanted to
Use Cases
Three main use cases:
Token-gating
Verifiable credentials
Sovereign data
Lit Protocol can be used in the real world:
Chris has token-gated his Tesla. Anyone who owns the NFT that represents the key to his car could drive his car
Smart door lock
Duration Of Access
The protocol supports updatable conditions — change, add, remove
Supports multiple users (e.g. access to 5 different friends)
What Does Sovereign Data Mean?
Sovereign data is the future of the web
In the past, people have attempted to set up self-sovereign servers
Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the internet, created a project called Solid to decentralize the web. However, it did not get traction
The idea is to have a sovereign hub where you do not need to go to a third party to rent a server space
This enables reputation, reviews, and friends list to travel with you from app to app instead of being a property of the platforms you use
Lit Gateway
A showcase of the various applications that are leveraging their SDK
Their Moat
It comes down to decentralization
Currently, they are controlling all of the nodes
In the near term, they are launching a consortium network of named node operators
Their moat is to provide the best infrastructure and to decentralize in a timely and secure way
Their Expansion Plans
Currently building a cloud wallet/distributed custody wallet
This product could be used by investment DAOs that want to hold assets across different ecosystems
Want to be the decentralized key management layer
Advice For Potential Web3 Founders
Starting with a problem that needs solving
Important to network and meet people
Hardest Thing About Being A Founder
The emotional roller coaster of being a founder
Being willing to throw things out if it doesn’t work
Wearing so many hats — technical, managing people, supporting users, etc.
Which Subsector In Web3 Are They Most Excited About?
Chris
New smart contract technologies
Zero knowledge tech
Integration of Web2 into Web3
David
Cultural shifts, the internet, and user-owned networks
DAOs, coordination, and compensation
Single Favourite NFT
David
NFT from the Stewart Brand movie
Chris
The Currency by Damien Hirst
Most Controversial Thought
David
Web3 still has a long way to go
Chris
Cryptocurrency is not good for exchanging value, but is best used as a coordination mechanism/incentive alignment mechanism
If They Have $10 Million And Have To Work On Something Else, What Would They Do?
Chris
Work on renewable energy
Problems that humanity is facing
David
Coastal enhanced weathering — removing carbon dioxide by putting carbon-negative sand in the ocean
If They Could Change Something In The Space
David
The vibes — how the crypto industry is presenting itself to the world and people in general
Chris
Ethereum scaling
Wallets working in a more human way
Better backup mechanisms for wallets
Web3 Ecosystem In 3 Years
Chris
Everything will scale
Will have more privacy
David
Sees himself on Andrew’s podcast again
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