Hej, I’m Erik
Money is the most surveilled thing in your life. Every transaction watched, scored, and stored, often forever. It doesn’t have to be this way, and a small group of people are working to change it. I’m one of them.
I’m a Human Rights Foundation grantee working on Cashu, an open ecash protocol for bitcoin, descended from David Chaum’s 1983 work on untraceable digital cash. I’m also Lead Designer at Hoseki, building proof of ownership infrastructure for bitcoin.
Work Experience
Projects
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Corruption Disrespector
Built and deployed the front end for Corruption Disrespector, a tool for anti-corruption investigations. The project won third place at the Human Rights Foundation's AI Hack for Freedom hackathon, where activists and developers paired up to vibe-code freedom tools in 28 hours.
- C
Cashu.me
I'm the second most active contributor to Cashu.me, behind most of the UI and UX. Recently designed the mint review and web of trust features, which help users decide which mints to actually trust.
- B
Bitcoin For Signal
Created and led the Bitcoin for Signal campaign. Designed the identity, the site, and the launch strategy that took a hackathon weekend to a viral privacy-tech moment.
- B
Bitchat Cashu Wallet
Integrated a working Cashu wallet into Bitchat for Android. Designed the UI in Figma, vibe-coded the Kotlin components in Cursor. Whole build: 72 hours.
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Minor League Miners
Won first place in both the Software Prize and HashLeague tracks at ATL Bit Labs’ Battle of the Mine Hackers. A new leaderboard for small miners and solo Bitaxe users that ranks by best session difficulty instead of total hashrate. To build it I spun up my own public pool, forked HashLeague, and built a UI on top of its API.
- A
Athenut
A privacy-preserving, pay-per-query search engine built on top of Kagi and Cashu. I designed the brand and built the front end. Pay with ecash to search. No accounts, no tracking.
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Cashu 95
A Figma prototype that drops the Cashu protocol into a full Windows 95 interface. Built a complete Win95 design system to do it. Half experiment, half love letter to old UI.
Talks
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Why AI Agents Want Bitcoin
A panel at Bitcoin 2026 in Las Vegas on why AI agents need bitcoin as their native settlement layer. We got into machine-to-machine payments, why censorship-resistance and programmability matter more once humans are out of the loop, and where ecash fits for the small, frequent transactions agents actually make.
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Lightning + Ecash: An Atomic Match Made in Heaven?
A Bitcoin 2026 talk in Las Vegas on how Lightning and ecash fit together. We dug into the trade-offs each one solves on its own, how atomic swaps between them work in practice, and why a layered approach (Lightning for routing and settlement, ecash for privacy and UX) is starting to feel inevitable.
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Why Ecash Matters For Bitcoin
I went on Cody's podcast and we talked about what ecash is and how it relates to Bitcoin, why a layered approach to digital money matters, and why getting the UX of payments right is so important.
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21 in 21, a Rapid-Fire Bitcoin Q&A Podcast
Recorded during Bitcoin Design Week in San Francisco. I talked about designing the future of money and how we can capture that feeling of 'magic' in digital money. Got into my experiments with ecash and bitchat, the magic of bump to pay NFC interactions, and how the small design details make a big difference.
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The State of Ecash Design
A talk I gave at Bitcoin ++ Privacy Edition in Riga focused on the current state of Cashu design, progress, challenges, and things that are ahead.
- B
Bitcoin Insider Interview
An interview with Lisa (Nity Nei), the founder of Bitcoin ++. We talked about how I got involved in Cashu, some designs I'm proud of, and what's coming next.
moreless
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How Better Design Will Impact Bitcoin
Discussed the history of other peer to peer protocols like BitTorrent and The Pirate Bay, and how those early systems shaped my thinking around Bitcoin. We also got into wallet UX, how to simplify the orange pill process, and where scaling tools like ecash can make a difference.
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Ecash Panel [Baltic Honey Badger]
A bit of a dream come true, I got to sit next to one of my heroes, Adam Back, and talk about ecash. This panel dives into what ecash is, what problems it solves (like privacy and scalability), and where it still falls short.
- W
What is "Good" Bitcoin Design?
This was a fun and thoughtful chat with Skyler, a fellow Bitcoin designer I really respect and admire. We talked about what it actually means to design in this space. Not just making things look good, but making them work well for real people.
- B
Bitcoin Design and Ecash UX
This was a fun one, recorded while walking along the river in Riga. We talked about designing peer-to-peer systems, the challenges of ecash UX, working on institutional products like Hoseki, and how cities like Stockholm and Riga inspire better design.
- D
Designing for Ecash [Bitcoin Asia: Hong Kong]
A talk on the future of Bitcoin through the lens of ecash design, tracing its roots from David Chaum to modern Bitcoin implementations. It explores how ecash can improve privacy, reduce censorship risks, and bring better UX to Bitcoin.
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Sprint Planning & Interviews
We talked about how sprint planning works in open source projects, and where user research can fit into the process to actually make an impact.
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Scaling Bitcoin
A deep dive into Bitcoin design, privacy, and why tools like Cashu matter. We talked about scaling, culture, freedom of speech, and the trade-offs that come with building for a more open, resilient internet.
- D
Designing for Bitcoin [Baltic Honey Badger]
A talk on the evolution of Bitcoin wallet UI, exploring common UX challenges and how different wallets address them. It also shares lessons from mainstream tech and the design trade-offs involved in building Bitcoin products.
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Nostr 101: What the F#&* is Nostr?
Introduction to the Nostr protocol and its applications.