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Company Name:<\/strong> Fedi<\/p>\n Founders:<\/strong> Obi Nwosu, Justin Moon and Eric Sirion<\/p>\n Date Founded:<\/strong> June 2022<\/p>\n Location of Headquarters:<\/strong> Fully remote<\/p>\n Amount of Bitcoin Held in Treasury:<\/strong> N\/A<\/p>\n Number of Employees:<\/strong> 27 full-time employees<\/p>\n Website:<\/strong> https:\/\/www.fedi.xyz\/<\/a><\/p>\n Public or Private?<\/strong> Private<\/p>\n Just a few years back, Obi Nwosu was running Coinfloor, a successful, long-running bitcoin exchange, out of the UK. But something irked Nwosu. He knew that he could be doing much more with freedom technologies like Bitcoin to help people around the world.<\/p>\n So, he and two partners founded Fedi<\/a>, a company that\u2019s recently released a \u201ccommunity superapp<\/a>,\u201d as Nwosu calls it, that provides an easy and private way to not only to manage money but to communicate digitally and meet the different needs of communities worldwide.<\/p>\n \u201cWe created Fedi because it solved a problem that we could see,\u201d Nwosu told Bitcoin Magazine.<\/p>\n \u201cThat problem was how to empower disempowered communities around the world and how to get millions of people that were using [bitcoin] exchanges and give them a path to go from third parties to self-custody,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n \u201cWe realized that the middle ground was community. If we could find a way to empower communities \u2014 to provide an offering which was as good, or in some ways better, than the centralized offerings that are by far still the [custodians that the] vast majority of people use, [and replace them with] parties who individuals trust more than they trust these third parties \u2014 that would be the path. That was the beginning idea, and the rest is history.\u201d<\/p>\n To slightly alter Nwosu\u2019s words, one might say that the rest is history in the making.<\/p>\n After over two years of developing the Fedi superapp, the company took it live<\/a> on August 6, 2024. And what the app offers even in its first iteration is perhaps more than even Nwosu himself envisioned when he undertook the project.<\/p>\n Fedi the company has two main components, according to Nwosu.<\/p>\n \u201cIt has the app, also called Fedi, and it has a network of experts who are local and can support users,\u201d he explained. \u201cWe call them the Fedi Order.\u201d<\/p>\n The app leverages what Nwosu refers to as \u201cfreedom technologies\u201d like Bitcoin, Lightning<\/a> and Nostr<\/a>. It also employs the Fedimint protocol<\/a>, which enables users to share custody of bitcoin; utilize the Lightning Network; and mint ecash, digital tokens pegged to the value of bitcoin, fiat currencies or other assets that are used to preserve privacy in transactions.<\/p>\n Beyond that, it lets users send messages privately and has other functionalities, features and even other apps within the app \u2014 hence the term \u201csuperapp.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou don’t have to install multiple apps to get things done,\u201d explained Nwosu. \u201c[With Fedi,] you have one app and you can, in one place, do all the different things you need to do.\u201d<\/p>\n Imagine having WhatsApp, Twitter and Venmo all in one app. This is what Fedi offers, albeit with different, more freedom tech-orien versions of messaging, social media and payment apps.<\/p>\n However, because some of this technology is new and difficult to use \u2014 particularly Bitcoin, Lightning and ecash mints \u2014 Fedi provides community support via the Fedi Order, composed of \u201cFedi Knights,\u201d which serves as a \u201cdecentralized Genius Bar,\u201d according to Nwosu.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you’ve got an iPhone and have a problem with it, you can go to an Apple store and walk up to the Genius Bar and someone who is knowledgeable can help you solve that given problem,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe wanted to replicate that feel. That’s what the Fedi Order does. They provide on the ground community support, which you need if you want to take Bitcoin beyond expert users or enthusiasts,\u201d Nwosu added.<\/p>\n This type of support is particularly useful for the guardians of Fedi communities.<\/p>\n To accomplish Nwosu\u2019s initial plan for Fedi \u2014 helping to move bitcoin off of exchanges and into the self-custody of its owners \u2014 the company utilizes a federated custody model, or a multisig setup in which various \u201cguardians\u201d hold the keys to bitcoin funds.<\/p>\n Community members select people to be guardians, and these guardians run the Fedi software together so that trust is dispersed amongst them. They\u2019re also in charge of custodying the community\u2019s bitcoin and minting ecash. Together, the guardians form a federation, a custodial model without a single point of failure.<\/p>\n \u201c[Each guardian is] individually trustworthy, otherwise they wouldn\u2019t be in those roles,\u201d said Nwosu.<\/p>\n \u201cThe fact that you require two of the three or three of five [to sign off on transactions] increases your trustworthiness significantly. We see this way of working occur in organizations, companies, governments, military and families time and time again,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can add more guardians to increase the level of redundancy and resilience.\u201d<\/p>\n Guardians will also make decisions for their community regarding how to employ the different modules, or \u201cmods\u201d, that Fedi offers.<\/p>\n \u201cModules are a way of upgrading their Fedi with [more] capabilities,\u201d said Nwosu.<\/p>\n For context, all Fedimints come with three modules: the Bitcoin module, which provides federated access to bitcoin; the Lightning module, which provides communities with access to the Lightning Network; and the mint module, which gives users the ability to mint ecash.<\/p>\nWhat Is Fedi?<\/h2>\n
Guardians And The Federated Custody Model<\/h2>\n