Building Mantra and Returning to Development Principles w/ Kgothatso Ngako
new renaissance capitalIn this episode, Frank sits down with Kgothatso Ngako (KG), founder of Machankura, Exonomia, and now Mantra — a tool that can be used to translate Bitcoin texts.
In the first part of the discussion — which is for the more technical-minded out there — KG provides an overview of how Mantra works, who it's for and why he employed tech like Nostr, Frost, and the Marmot Protocol in its design. He also shares how his work on Mantra will ultimately inform upcoming development for Machankura.
In the latter half of the interview, Frank and KG discussion what it's been like to stay alive during this era of Bitcoin-related tech vulnerability exploits, why it's important to keep building despite setbacks, and how everything is essentially open-source now, which means that almost all software is susceptible to hacks.
In listening, we think you'll see what we see in KG in that he's one of the most creative and thoughtful developers in the Bitcoin and freedom tech space.
Enjoy!
Timestamps:
0:00 Highlight
0:20 A Word from Frank
3:39 Introduction
5:58 Building Exonomia and Mantra
18:35 Who Mantra Is for
20:14 How Mantra Works
37:18 Why KG Created Mantra
45:24 Why KG Used Nostr for Mantra
49:01 Who Exonomia Has Reached
53:20 Open-sourcing Translation
55:17 Mantra as an Experimental Project
1:00:11 How Proposed South African Bitcoin Regulations Affect Machankura
1:04:34 How Mantra Informs Machankura
1:06:57 Surviving This Era of Bitcoin Software Hacks
1:13:35 We're Not Going Anywhere
1:15:34 A Return to Principles
1:21:30 Taking a Step Back
1:23:35 Everything Is Open-source / Reverse Engineering
1:30:04 Social Engineering
1:31:55 Final Thoughts