Bitcoin Takeover Podcast

Murch is a Bitcoin Core contributor, best known for his engineering work at Chaincode Labs & his prolific answers on Bitcoin's Stack Exchange page. In this episode, he breaks myths about ordinals, OP_CAT, Drivechains, 0conf, ossification & more! Introduction of Murch (00:00:41) Discussion on Bitcoin Myths (00:01:41) Ordinal Inscriptions Debate (00:02:07) Concerns Over Ordinals and Fungibility (00:06:12) Censorship and Data Insertion (00:08:42) Bitcoin Core's Development Process (00:10:18) Public Nature of Bitcoin Core Discussions (00:11:31) Community Perception of Developers (00:12:49) Radicalization in Bitcoin Perspectives (00:16:35) Diverse Interests in Bitcoin (00:18:28) Censorship Resistance and Decentralization (00:20:21) Falsification and Software Maintenance (00:22:27) Evolving Software Ecosystem (00:24:29) Lightning Network and Transaction Confirmation (00:26:08) Community Engagement and Feedback (00:27:49) Default Behavior Changes in Bitcoin Core (00:28:54) Scaling Bitcoin: Layer 2 Solutions (00:31:29) Protocol Development Momentum (00:33:11) Concerns About Opcode Activation (00:35:57) Covenants and Transaction Introspection (00:39:00) Discussion on Community Perception (00:43:56) Arguments for Covenants (00:45:01) Politics of Bitcoin Development (00:48:55) Challenges of Soft Fork Activations (00:52:46) Secondary Effects of Taproot (00:53:57) Potential of Taproot (00:56:12) Complexity of Bitcoin Upgrades (01:00:17) Future Block Size Considerations (01:02:35) Discussion on Block Size Politics (01:05:57) Digital Cash vs. Store of Value (01:06:51) Scaling Solutions Debate (01:08:03) Lightning Network Advantages (01:09:33) Introduction to HODLing.ch (01:11:06) MimbleWimble Extension Block Experiment (01:11:49) Post-Taproot Era Prospects (01:13:12) Privacy vs. Scripting Trade-offs (01:14:12) Bitcoin’s Supply and Privacy Concerns (01:15:41) Future of Privacy Protocols (01:17:01) Trade-offs in Privacy Solutions (01:21:58) The Role of Mining for Privacy (01:26:39) Concerns Over Mining Centralization (01:27:16) Mining Pool Adoption Challenges (01:28:00) Consensus Vigilance (01:29:24) The Role of Miners in Protocol Development (01:30:38) Historical Context of Miners and Validators (01:34:48) Economic Majority Concept (01:35:27) Drive Chain and Network Security (01:40:40) Zero Confirmation Transactions (01:42:07) Historical Overview of Bitcoin's Double Spending Solution (01:43:00) Future of Small Payments on Bitcoin (01:47:36) Lightning Network as a Solution (01:48:51) Full RBF and Unconfirmed Transactions (01:50:14) User Experience with RBF (01:53:16) Trade-offs in Bitcoin Development (01:57:26) Concerns Over Block Subsidy (01:58:50) Transaction Fees vs. Block Subsidy (02:01:14) Research Needs for Bitcoin Incentives (02:04:18) Tail Emission Debate (02:06:57) Long-term Outlook for Bitcoin Demand (02:09:35) Value Preservation vs. Network Security (02:10:02) Discussion on Bitcoin Use Cases (02:12:47) Role of Bitcoin Stack Exchange (02:13:48) Encouragement to Contribute (02:15:51) Bitcoin Tech Group Newsletter (02:17:05) Listening to the Uptick Newsletter (02:19:03) Appreciation for the Conversation (02:20:00) Challenges in Decentralized Systems (02:20:47) Recommended Bitcoin Literature (02:21:49) Closing Thoughts on Bitcoin (02:22:56)

Edan Yago is the co-author of BitcoinOS: the first Zero Knowledge proof system to get verified on Bitcoin's main net. BitcoinOS is a significant breakthrough, as it endows Bitcoin with extended financial features without the need for a soft fork. Time stamps: Introducing Edan Yago... again in season 15! (00:00:45) BitcoinOS, The Shared Computation & Smart Contract System for Bitcoin (00:02:36) Introduction of BitSnark (00:05:55) Emulation of Conditional Payments Without a Covenant Soft Fork (00:06:13) BitSnark vs. BitVM (00:06:51) Taproot's Untapped Role (00:09:37) Scalability of Bitcoin (00:13:14) Understanding zk Proofs & Rollups (00:15:39) Defining Zero Knowledge Proofs (00:17:35) Potential of zk in Bitcoin OS (00:20:13) Bitcoin's Unique UTXOs with ZK Proofs (00:20:41) Future of Bitcoin Transactions (00:21:45) Scalability and Bitcoin Transactions (00:22:58) Concerns About Miners' Incentives (00:23:15) Value of Bitcoin Block Space (00:25:29) DeFi and Bitcoin Settlement Time (00:26:48) Rollups vs. Sidechains (00:29:04) Permissionless Innovations (00:31:30) Trust Assumptions in Bitcoin OS (00:35:22) Optimistic Verification Explained (00:36:34) Economic Shift in Bitcoin Mining (00:39:09) Importing Smart Contracts (00:40:42) Fragmentation and Consolidation (00:41:08) Bitcoin's Monetary Network Effect (00:44:46) Native Privacy in Bitcoin (00:45:45) Creating Private Addresses (00:47:10) Counterparty and Historical Context (00:48:37) Transaction Costs in Bitcoin OS (00:49:45) Interoperability with Existing Projects (00:51:07) Value of Existing Systems (00:53:55) Covenants and Soft Forks (00:55:10) Trade-offs of Soft Forks (00:57:37) Concerns about Unintended Consequences (00:59:25) Cultural Hardening of Bitcoin (01:00:12) Testing Zcash Transactions (01:01:04) User-Friendly Software Implementation (01:01:19) Excitement for Sovereign and Rollups (01:04:01) Philosophical Debate on Bitcoin Code Changes (01:05:28) Decentralization as a Tool (01:06:56) Role of the Lightning Network (01:08:14) Custodial Solutions vs. Self-Custody (01:11:44) Cold Storage Capabilities in BitcoinOS (01:15:12) Running a BitcoinOS Node (01:15:47) Token Necessity for Bitcoin OS (01:16:14) Encouraging Node Operation with Tokens (01:18:02) Bitcoin's Resurgence (01:19:47) Long-term Commitment (01:20:47) Living Off Bitcoin (01:21:09) Follow Yago and Projects (01:21:32) Conclusion (01:22:29)

Paul Puey is the CEO & co-founder of Edge Wallet: a light mobile wallet which is optimized for privacy features. In this episode, we talk about the philosophy behind Edge, how one should analyze privacy features & the various layers of Bitcoin privacy. Time stamps: Introducing Paul Puey (00:00:47) Overview of Edge Wallet Features (00:02:08) Decentralized Exchange Integration (00:04:00) Challenges of Privacy in the U.S. (00:04:58) Privacy and User Security (00:06:05) Political Climate and Crypto (00:08:05) Expectations from Politicians (00:10:01) Open Source Status of Edge Wallet (00:12:33) Importance of Transparency (00:14:31) User Privacy and App Permissions (00:15:56) Edge Wallet's Architecture (00:18:51) Public Key Data Handling (00:19:19) Transition to BlockBook Servers (00:19:58) Privacy Enhancements in Edge Wallet (00:20:59) Understanding Xpub and Privacy Trade-offs (00:21:59) Monero's View Key Explained (00:23:12) Running a Private Monero Node (00:25:17) Future of View Tags in Monero (00:26:19) Sideshift ad (00:28:04) Comparing Electrum and Full Nodes (00:28:26) Blockchain Data Management (00:30:24) Querying Blockchain Efficiently (00:32:25) Challenges of Running a Full Node (00:34:38) The Usability of Multi-Chain Apps (00:35:33) Comparing Banking Systems to Crypto (00:36:38) Sponsorship Message from StarkWare (00:37:20) Excitement for L2 Developments (00:38:09) The Future of Sidechains vs. zk Rollups (00:38:25) Improvements in Sidechain Technology (00:38:50) The Potential of Sidechains for Multiple Cryptos (00:40:03) Challenges for Bitcoin's Functionality (00:41:17) Market Demand for Bitcoin Innovations (00:41:45) Debate on Sidechains and Miners' Political Power (00:42:22) Regulatory Discussions on Miners' Compensation (00:43:16) The Viability of Small-Scale Mining (00:44:44) The Reality of Mining Profitability (00:45:53) Ideological Mining vs. Profit-Driven Mining (00:48:19) The Concept of Tail Emission in Bitcoin (00:49:41) Challenges of Implementing Tail Emission (00:50:21) Funding L2 Validators through Transaction Fees (00:51:46) The Future of Bitcoin's Layer 1 and Layer 2 (00:52:53) Discussion on Layer 1 and Layer 2 (00:54:30) Multisig and Threshold Signatures (00:55:05) Long-term Viability of Layer 1 (00:56:52) Future of Bitcoin (00:57:52) Ethereum as Layer 2 for Bitcoin (00:58:30) Challenges of Lightning Network (00:59:24) Hybrid Proof Systems (01:00:59) Transition to Privacy Discussion (01:03:05) Market Trends Affecting Privacy Coins (01:03:35) Privacy Coins and Transactional Use (01:07:00) Integration of New Privacy Coins (01:08:01) Lengthy Response on Listing Coins (01:10:01) Clarifying Privacy Expectations (01:11:00) Privacy Layers Overview (01:12:21) Coinjoin and Sender Privacy (01:12:21) Stealth Addresses Explained (01:13:28) Confidential Transactions (01:14:35) Challenges of Privacy Coins (01:15:45) IP Address Privacy (01:18:59) Bitcoin's Privacy Potential (01:19:06) Zcash and Scalability (01:20:17) Litecoin's MimbleWimble Extension Block (01:21:07) User Experience and Protocol Complexity (01:22:38) Soft Fork vs. Sidechain (01:25:30) Lightning Network's Privacy Claims (01:28:22) Anonymity Set in Lightning (01:29:43) Understanding Centralized Entities and Anonymization (01:30:39) Challenges of Multiple Hops in Lightning (01:31:51) Integration of Lightning Network into Edge Wallet (01:32:37) Self-Custody Focus of Edge Wallet (01:34:22) Bringing Self-Custody to the Masses (01:34:49) Importance of Privacy Tools (01:36:13) Controversial Opinions on Bitcoin (01:37:09) Skepticism Towards Bitcoin's Future (01:40:47) Market for Non-Bitcoin Functions (01:43:16) Hardware Wallet Integration in Edge Wallet (01:44:33) Onboarding Users Without Seed Phrases (01:46:29) User Experience and Security in Edge Wallet (01:47:03)

Justin Bons is one of the most popular Bitcoin critics on Twitter. As a fan of new technologies, he believes that sharding and other scaling techniques will save the trilemma and bring uncompromising decentralization. Is it really so? Time stamps: Introduction (00:00:44) Justin's Shift from Supporter to Critic (00:01:32) Outperformance of Bitcoin (00:02:46) Gradual Realization of Bitcoin's Limitations (00:04:07) The Importance of Decision-Making in Bitcoin's Future (00:05:10) Bitcoin's Popularity vs. Its Fundamental Value (00:06:27) The Original Vision of Bitcoin (00:07:21) Comparison of Bitcoin and Ethereum (00:08:28) Clarifying Transaction Metrics (00:09:17) Ethereum's Capacity and Bitcoin's Limitations (00:10:37) The Evolution of Blockchain Technology (00:12:41) Decentralization Concerns with High Throughput Blockchains (00:15:01) The Ideal Blockchain Situation (00:16:06) Exploring Modern Sharded Systems (00:16:34) Node Requirements for Bitcoin and Other Blockchains (00:17:26) Sharding and Validator Security (00:18:06) Horizontal Scaling in Sharding (00:19:09) Debunking Bitcoin's Technology (00:20:23) Ethereum's Design Limitations (00:20:32) Centralization in Validator Nodes (00:21:11) Validator versus Full Node (00:21:50) Pool Dependency in Bitcoin Mining (00:22:06) Proving Validator Identity (00:23:06) On-Chain Analysis for Decentralization (00:26:27) Ethereum's Centralization Debate (00:28:13) Impact of Ethereum Foundation on Development (00:29:24) Client Diversity in Ethereum (00:30:40) Resistance to Ethereum's Transition to PoS (00:32:13) Theoretical Perspectives on Decentralization (00:32:52) Competing Client Development Teams (00:33:17) Decentralization as Continuous Battle (00:34:41) Decentralization Definition (00:34:46) Comparison of Validators (00:35:50) Unique Validators in Ethereum (00:37:14) Power Distribution in Ethereum (00:38:10) Decentralization Measurement (00:39:05) Power Dynamics in Blockchain (00:39:55) Hostile Government Scenario (00:40:42) Economic Security and State Attacks (00:41:26) Cost to Attack Analysis (00:45:41) Hypothetical Attack Costs (00:46:58) Bitcoin's Security Budget (00:49:18) Proof of Stake Attack Costs (00:51:50) Private Key Security Discussion (00:52:09) Economic Security of Proof Systems (00:52:36) Decentralization Metrics (00:53:06) State Actor Vulnerability (00:53:35) Mining Farms vs. Validators (00:55:05) Centralization in Governance (00:57:04) Innovation in Bitcoin Development (00:58:17) Flaws in Off-Chain Governance (01:03:06) Scaling Challenges (01:01:40) Market Dynamics and Network Usage (01:08:16) Ethereum vs. Solana Capacity (01:09:16) Solana's Usage Claims (01:10:05) Decentralized Exchanges Dream (01:11:08) Transaction Fee Debate (01:12:00) Governance and Decision Making (01:18:16) Bitcoin's Current Capacity Issues (01:23:01) Market Routing Around Bitcoin (01:25:09) Discussion on Blockchain Mechanisms (01:26:07) Chain Identity and Tickers (01:26:18) Proof of Work and User Distribution (01:27:04) Market Cap vs. Proof of Work (01:27:27) Bitcoin's Dominance Decline (01:27:56) Bitcoin's Usage on Social Media (01:28:14) Limitations of Bitcoin's Transactions (01:28:41) Layer Two Solutions and Adoption (01:29:02) Philosophy vs. Engineering Arguments (01:30:08) Sustainability of Bitcoin's Security (01:31:06) Comparing User Bases of Different Blockchains (01:32:04) Conceding Market Position (01:33:29) Utility of Bitcoin (01:34:05) Effects of Fee Spikes (01:34:26) Concerns Over Bitcoin's Security Budget (01:36:50) Hash Rate vs. Security (01:37:30) Measuring Bitcoin Security (01:39:25) Discussion on Mining Security (01:41:51) Mining Dynamics Explained (01:42:46) Proof of Work vs. Proof of Stake (01:44:09) Trustless Staking and Smart Contracts (01:45:40) Ethereum's Data Availability Concerns (01:46:04) Critique of Layer Two Solutions (01:47:03) Solana's Reliability Issues (01:48:30) Bitcoin's Shutdown History (01:49:03) Centralization in Blockchain (01:50:12) Trustless vs. Trust-minimized Systems (01:51:18) Technology Comparison: Bitcoin vs. Others (01:52:53) Decentralization in Governance (01:56:46) Governance and Centralization (01:57:48) Transaction Capacity Debate (01:58:54) Utility of Other Chains (02:00:26) Decentralized Exchanges (02:01:22) Debate Tactics (02:02:58) Sustained Use Cases (02:05:01) Reality of Blockchain Usage (02:09:05) Skepticism in Metrics (02:12:45) On-chain Metrics and User Engagement (02:13:50) Bitcoin's Dominance and Future Predictions (02:14:44) User Experience in Cryptocurrency (02:19:31) Impact of Institutional Adoption (02:25:29) Technological Innovations in Blockchain (02:28:41) Consensus Mechanisms and Shards (02:29:56) Human Politics in Blockchain (02:30:06) Decentralization and Majority Rules (02:30:50) Scaling and Blockchain Security (02:31:20) Investing in Blockchain Projects (02:32:06) Bitcoin's Future and Market Position (02:34:02) Technological Evolution and Adoption (02:36:58) Liquidity versus Technology (02:37:17) Bitcoin's First Mover Advantage (02:41:00) Utility and Speculation in Crypto (02:43:33) Speculation on Bitcoin's Future (02:44:48) Demographic Challenges in Bitcoin (02:45:23) Market Solutions for Scaling (02:46:43) Comparing Ethereum and Bitcoin Approaches (02:47:32) Developer Trust in Bitcoin (02:48:21) Double Standards in Blockchain Evaluation (02:49:10) Historical Fairness of Cryptocurrency Launches (02:50:30) Unique Aspects of Bitcoin's Founding (02:52:36) Ethereum's ICO and Fair Distribution (02:54:15) Scalability of Multiple Chains (02:56:08) Reality of Blockchain User Activity (02:56:51) Bitcoin's Technological Evolution (02:59:26) Technological Breakthroughs Debate (03:00:02) Archaic Technology Argument (03:00:48) Security and Economic Activity (03:01:19) Investor Comfort Levels (03:02:44) Competition in the Market (03:03:56) Faith in Bitcoin (03:05:02) Historical Critiques of Bitcoin (03:05:45) Bitcoin's Market Dominance (03:06:14) Comparative Technology Failures (03:07:12) Security Questions (03:12:35) On-Chain Governance Debate (03:15:30) Discussion on Tornado Cash and Cryptography (03:16:52) Bitcoin's Capacity Debate (03:17:02) Layer Two Critique (03:18:59) Extension Blocks Proposal (03:19:39) Governance Through Hard Forks (03:20:42) Decentralization and Soft Forks (03:23:19) Reality of Centralization (03:24:42) Break Announcement (03:25:31) Security of Bitcoin Network (03:30:31) Blocksize Debate Reflection (03:31:47) Personal Experiences in Crypto (03:32:27) Discussion on BIP 101 Support (03:33:08) Transaction Fees and Security (03:34:04) Peter Todd's Perspective (03:35:08) Current Fee Status (03:36:16) Litecoin's Market Position (03:38:00) Scaling Bitcoin (03:39:04) Decentralization and Community (03:40:05) Defining Bitcoin's Failure (03:41:33) Bitcoin's Value Proposition (03:43:22) Comparing Bitcoin and Other Chains (03:44:24) Future of Bitcoin's Market Position (03:47:12) Security and Market Cap Relationship (03:48:37) Bitcoin's Niche and Future Viability (03:49:39) Bitcoin's Authority and Centralization (03:50:34) Economic Security in Altcoins (03:51:03) Resilience of Bitcoin Developers (03:51:24) Political Attacks on Blockchains (03:52:04) Community and Technology Disconnect (03:56:29) Scalability and Mass Adoption (03:57:12) Optimizing Bitcoin's Codebase (03:59:13) Bitcoin's Security and Future (04:03:15) The Evolution of Decentralization and Use Cases (04:06:49) Subjectivity of Value and Technology (04:08:05) Bitcoin's Identity Crisis (04:09:04) Community Dynamics in Bitcoin (04:10:19) Cycles in Bitcoin Adoption (04:11:20) The Role of Crisis in Bitcoin's Evolution (04:12:22) Transaction Fees and Usability Concerns (04:13:00) Scaling Solutions and Lightning Network (04:14:03) User Experience Testing with Wallets (04:14:33) Lightning Network Transaction Experiment (04:19:00) Inter-Wallet Transactions (04:21:00) UX Maximalism in Wallet Design (04:23:46) Bitcoin Node Experience (04:23:53) Trust Trade-offs in Watchtower (04:24:25) Evaluating Layer 2 Solutions (04:24:48) Capital Inefficiency of Lightning (04:26:03) Scaling Bitcoin vs. Layer 2 (04:27:05) User Experience with Phoenix Wallet (04:27:36) Hypothetical Scaling Discussion (04:28:06) Cypherpunk Ideology (04:28:34) Value of Diverse Perspectives (04:29:32) Importance of Content Creation (04:30:10) Reality of Bitcoin Governance (04:32:28) Acknowledging Centralization Issues (04:33:11) Following Justin Bonds (04:33:58) Long-term Commitment to Bitcoin (04:35:15) Excitement for Future Developments (04:36:09) Magic Word for Listeners (04:37:09)

Peter Todd is known for being brutally honest: so when it comes to topics such as covenant soft forks, monetary inflation, Bitcoin scaling & privacy, he won't hold back from being critical while expressing his love for the Lightning network. Time stamps: Introducing Peter Todd (00:00:41) Full RBF Discussion (00:01:56) Free Relay Attack Insights (00:04:05) Economic Incentives for Miners (00:05:00) Tail Emission Proposal (00:06:43) Critique of Fixed Supply Beliefs (00:08:43) Litecoin, Dogecoin & Tail Emission (00:11:30) Covenants in Bitcoin (00:13:21) Covenants and Lightning Network (00:14:21) Transaction Cycling Attack in Lightning (00:16:02) State of the Lightning Network (00:17:11) Discussions on ZK Rollups (00:18:55) Concerns Over Changing Incentives (00:19:26) Objections to ZK Rollups (00:20:21) Drivechains and Politics (00:22:05) Risks of Miner Politics (00:23:56) Hashrate Decentralization Debate (00:24:01) Prediction Markets and Decentralization (00:26:25) Covenants and Drivechains (00:27:08) Covenants vs. CTV (00:28:33) Cashu and Lightning Network (00:29:50) BitVM and Sidechains (00:31:46) Excitement About Lightning (00:33:02) Critique of Fee-Free Transactions (00:34:20) Peter Todd & John Dillon (00:36:13) Open Timestamps in 2023 Guatemala Presidential Elections (00:37:41) Voting Fraud Evidence (00:39:51) Timestamping the Internet Archive (00:42:33) Non-Scammy Cryptocurrencies (00:45:30) Mimble Wimble Extension Block (00:47:57) The Future of Bitcoin (00:49:05) Peter's Current Projects and Funding (00:51:02)

What's next for Wasabi Wallet after ZK Snacks shut down the biggest CoinJoin coordinator? Lucas Ontivero & Turbolay, the two developers who still maintain the code, are positive that the project will grow even bigger than before! So when is 3.0 coming? Time stamps: Introduction (00:00:42) Maintaining Wasabi (00:02:25) Decentralization and New Features (00:07:10) Community Takeover and Comparison with Samurai Wallet (00:10:55) Adapting to New Paradigm (00:15:25) Why Choose Wasabi? (00:20:57) The anonymity and privacy features of Wasabi (00:21:56) Government running a Wasabi coordinator? (00:23:27) Underrated features of Wasabi (00:24:38) Automatic coin selector and advanced coin selection workflow (00:27:37) Concerns and criticisms about Wasabi (00:29:38) Address reuse and privacy risks in Wasabi (00:32:30) Integrating Wasabi with external services (00:39:15) The daemon integration (00:42:43) Decentralization of Coinjoins (00:44:24) Liquidity and coordinator updates (00:47:49) Coordinator connection and discovery (00:50:42) Coordinator fees and user protections (00:56:10) Motivation for working on Wasabi (01:02:46) Lucas Ontivero's Challenges (01:04:29) Project Commitment (01:06:49) Community Support (01:09:52) Privacy in Bitcoin (01:13:30) Future Solutions (01:15:59) Regulatory Concerns (01:17:32) Maintaining Wasabi (01:21:32) Hardware Wallet Compatibility (01:25:35) Community Support and Future Plans (01:26:40) Technical Control and Graphical Interface (01:27:23) Acknowledgments and Sponsorship (01:28:39) Following the Contributors (01:30:10) Importance of Wasabi for Bitcoin Privacy (01:31:17)

Bitcoin Uncensored co-host Chris DeRose makes his fourth appearance on the Bitcoin Takeover podcast! This time around, he dislikes the English language, hates materialism, and wouldn't even accept a free Supra! Three former BU guests join the reunion. Time Stamps: The reunion of Bitcoin Uncensored (00:00:27) Influential moments and early guests (00:01:43) Introduction and background of Chris DeRose (00:02:33) Discussion about Perry Ann Boring (00:03:19) Reflection on blockchain and decentralization (00:08:19) Nostalgia for the early days of Bitcoin (00:13:23) Controversies and impact of interviews (00:15:11) Reflection on podcast quality and fun (00:19:34) Cultural shifts (00:21:48) Cancel Culture (00:23:08) American Banker Conference 2015 (00:23:43) Confidence in Bitcoin (00:25:26) Experts vs elites (00:29:32) Use of Language (00:31:23) Why Chris studies Hebrew now (00:38:41) The French Revolution (00:42:17) Bitcoin miners (00:48:04) Learning from History (00:51:47) On Truth (01:00:29) Rare Pepe and Cryptocurrency Collections (01:04:35) Interest in Bitcoin History (01:05:28) Reactions to Assets Built on Bitcoin (01:05:59) Formation of Cults and Coalitions (01:06:38) Bitcoin's Future and Politics (01:10:36) Decentralization and Future Projections (01:16:04) Language, Politics, and Bitcoin (01:22:17) Bitcoin's Trajectory and Sociopolitical Influence (01:24:22) The simulacrum of crypto (01:25:28) Prediction of US politics (01:27:40) Reflections on political figures (01:28:38) Discussion on Bitcoin's success (01:36:05) Reassessing the future of crypto (01:43:31) Satoshi's Roundtable (01:47:13) Responding to Outrage (01:47:58) Audience Questions (01:49:08) Reflections on OneCoin and Hex (01:51:57) Observations on Richard Heart (01:52:23) Martin Skrelli and Trump Coin (02:00:07) Florida's Future and Climate Concerns (02:05:52) The insurance and mortgage challenge (02:07:28) Birthday wishes to Jay Berg (02:08:47) Miami's changing culture (02:09:29) Book recommendations (02:13:28) Debate and empathy (02:19:33) Bitcoin maximalism and affinity scams (02:26:13) Ethereum as a scam (02:28:34) The cop psychopathic bitcoin (02:29:37) Financial perspective and indexing (02:30:38) Podcast invitations and reputation (02:31:22) Persistence in podcasting (02:32:43) Darknet markets and cryptocurrency use (02:33:39) Responsibility for promoting scams (02:34:50) Life after Bitcoin and changing perspectives (02:40:02) Supra cycle and rejecting materialism (02:44:09) Future of hygienic models for Bitcoin (02:50:45) The privilege of having access to better education (02:51:49) Bitcoin development and governance model (02:54:36) Morality of number go up (02:56:49) Influence and agenda of Blockstream (02:59:49) Facing online harassment and bad faith environment (03:06:09) Impact of Bitcoin Uncensored (03:11:54) The couch conversation (03:14:41) Private conversations (03:15:30) Disappointment and disillusionment (03:16:28) Simulacrum and performative behavior (03:18:21) Challenges of communication (03:22:19) Political systems and skepticism (03:27:45) Monarchy vs. democracy (03:30:13) Character assassination in democracy (03:33:02) Fracturing of the States (03:35:31) The mafias in the US (03:36:24) Travel visa challenges (03:37:01) Systemic corruption and rules (03:39:00)

Sergio Demian Lerner is the architect of Rootstock, Bitcoin's first sidechain. Recently, he became interested in BitVM as an instrument to create trust-minimized sidechains. So he optimized the design & created BitVMX! Introduction Sergio... again! (00:00:31) Evolution of BitVM (00:02:18) Improvements in BitVM X (00:13:26) Trust-minimized Computing (00:17:11) The politics of Bitcoin software (00:18:34) Decentralization and financial inclusion (00:20:06) Miners' role in supporting sidechains (00:20:55) Sidechain vs. Layer Two (00:22:09) Comparison between Rootstock and Liquid (00:24:44) Technical aspects of BitVM X (00:28:11) Integration of Ethereum innovations into Bitcoin (00:30:44) Contributing to the Bitcoin ecosystem (00:34:03) Bitcoin Culture and Price Dynamics (00:34:05) Innovation and Staying Ahead (00:36:10) Failure and Disruption (00:37:21) Competition and Lightning Network (00:39:36) Bitcoin Layers and Ecosystem (00:43:18) Rootstock Wallets and Multichain Integration (00:44:28) Side Chains and Bitcoin Miners (00:45:41) Blind Merge Mining and Fast Side Chains (00:48:10) The development of lightweight sidechains (00:49:42) Implementing Drivechains with BitVMX (00:50:50) Proposed blockchain structure and limitations (00:51:31) Comparing development approaches (00:53:18) Encouraging BitVMX community contributions (00:54:31) Addressing conspiracy theories about Rootstock (01:00:12) Skepticism about identity projects on blockchain (01:03:07) Live demo plans and promoting Rootstock (01:04:30) NFTs on Rootstock (01:05:43) Parallel Transaction Processing Engine (01:07:10) Prediction for Bitcoin Soft Forks (01:08:08) Debate on Bitcoin Upgrades (01:09:56) Challenges of Bitcoin Improvement (01:12:24) Conclusion (01:13:20)

What are the Bitcoin projects that suck? In this episode, Super Testnet & Shinobi point out to lots of suboptimal features in CoinJoins, Lightning Network, Nostr, BitVM, and Bitcoin development itself. It's fun, it's educational & it's brutally honest! Time stamps: Introducing Shinobi & Super Testnet (00:00:00) Recording at Paralelni Polis (00:01:06) Why Taproot Sucks (00:01:49) Lightning Network (00:05:06) Wasabi Wallet (00:08:19) Nostr Social Media (00:16:15) Cryptographic Key Management (00:17:09) Cryptography Misconceptions (00:18:19) Nostr's Lack of Key Management (00:21:01) Proposed Solutions for Key Management (00:21:47) Criticism of SeedSigner (00:24:21) Alternative ESP32 Hardware Wallets (00:28:23) LNBits and Iterative Improvements (00:28:50) Drivechain Debate (00:30:04) Random Ordering for Sidechains to Prevent MEV (00:34:42) The timestamp's title (time it starts) Drivechains and Miners (00:34:45) Drivechains and Memes (00:38:12) Core Lightning and Plugin Issues (00:39:02) Bitcoin Rollups & The Unilateral Exit Issue (00:42:04) RGB vs ZK Rollups (00:44:25) Samourai Wallet Criticisms (00:52:25) BitVM and Expensiveness (00:57:42) JoinMarket Limitations and Criticism (01:01:59) Non-Bitcoin Projects Dumping Data on the Blockchain (01:05:05) Block Digest Reboot? (01:07:33) Bitcoin Advocacy and Criticism (01:09:09)

F/Dev, also known as 1440000bytes or simply "Floppy", is an open source developer best known for his work on Joinstr: a CoinJoin implementation for Electrum wallet. In this episode, he talks about Bitcoin privacy & his new job at LayerTwo Labs. Time stamps: Mr. Floppy's Work on CoinJoin (00:01:31) Discusses the implementation of CoinJoin feature in Electrum wallet and the challenges faced. Differences in CoinJoin Protocols (00:04:02) User Reception and Usage of CoinJoin (00:06:35) Challenges and Social Dynamics in Bitcoin Community (00:11:45) State of Lightning Network (00:22:06) Mr. Floppy's Employment at LayerTwo Labs (00:18:22) LayerTwo Labs and Lightning Network Critique (00:21:23) Client Protections (00:29:26) Custodial Wallet Risks (00:30:41) Custodial Wallet Misconceptions (00:32:07) CoinJoin and Scaling (00:33:42) Privacy and Custody (00:35:13) Zero Knowledge Proofs (00:37:44) Soft Forks and Bitcoin Upgrades (00:41:44) Bitcoin Culture and Development (00:44:26) Bitcoin Upgrades and Soft Forks (00:54:29) Soft Fork Preferences (00:57:57) Quantum Resistance and Covenants (01:00:09) Custodial Wallets and Adoption (01:02:20) Bitcoin Privacy Tools (01:04:57) Confidentiality and Fungibility (01:08:04) Running a Full Node (01:15:08) Node Politicization (01:18:21) Bitcoin's Evolution and Narrative (01:21:42) Custodial and Non-Custodial Solutions (01:24:01) Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin Community (01:26:02) Bitcoin Community Dynamics (01:28:50) Freedom of Expression (01:33:57) Litecoin and HODL Culture (01:34:18) Centralization in Bitcoin Development (01:40:58) Scaling with Drivechains (01:43:51) Influencers and Opinions (01:47:51) Future Work and Contact Information (01:49:28)

Rijndael is the CTO of Taproot Wizards – a group of bitcoiners who want to make Bitcoin magical. In this interview, he talks about why OP_CAT matters and what kind of features we should expect to see in Bitcoin once a covenant soft fork gets activated. Taproot Wizards and Bitcoin Magic (00:01:53) Memes as Tools for Bitcoin Advancement (00:03:20) Discussion on Taproot Wizards' Intentions (00:03:47) Rijndael's Background and Work (00:06:38) Discussion on BitKey Hardware Wallet (00:09:12) Statechains and Drivechains (00:20:06) Layer Two Labs and Paul Sztorc’s Message (00:26:03) Taproot Wizards Funding Accusations (00:28:16) Cryptography and Scaling (00:31:53) Stark Proofs and Scalability (00:33:06) Layer Two Solutions (00:36:33) Bitcoin's Evolution (00:38:51) Lightning Network (00:42:21) Is Stacks a Layer Two? (00:47:39) Future of Liquid and Lightning (00:49:41) Lightning Network and Liquid (00:50:35) Ordinals and Flywheel Effect (00:52:13) Non-Custodial Lending and Trading (00:53:17) Covenant Proposals and Bitcoin Upgrades (00:57:54) CAT Opcode and Bitcoin Development (00:59:32) OP_CAT Activation and Community Perception (01:03:25) Ocean Mining and Network Control (01:09:25) Bitcoin Purifier and Transaction Rejection (01:12:55) Bitcoin Development and Narrative Control (01:15:36) Casey and Runes (01:16:19) Simplicity and Protocol Design (01:17:19) User-Friendly Implementation of Runes (01:20:11) Use Cases and Challenges of Ordinals (01:22:34) Great Script Restoration and Controversy (01:24:26) Ordinal Inscriptions and Scarcity (01:27:21) Future Projects and Layer Twos (01:30:25) Taproot Wizards' Presence and Conference Participation (01:36:55) Addressing Critics of Taproot and SegWit (01:38:04) Data Embedding in Bitcoin Transactions (01:38:42) The Cat Chain vs. Dog Chain (01:41:10) Setting Up a Live Stream (01:43:00) Following Taproot Wizards on Twitter (01:44:25) I International Travel and Visa Issues (01:45:07) “Reagan Dial” (01:46:20) Final Remarks and Invitation to Follow Taproot Wizards (01:46:48)

Pete Rizzo is a veteran Bitcoin journalist who still remembers the time when Bitcoin & crypto were the same undivided community. In this episode, he talks about why Bitcoin history matters & how he approaches journalism. Time stamps: Bitcoin's Historical Significance (00:00:48) Bitcoin's Emergence and Pete Rizzo's Journey (00:02:09) Challenges in Understanding Bitcoin's History (00:03:40) Bitcoin's Ever-Changing Nature (00:05:24) The Importance of Contextualizing Bitcoin's History (00:08:12) The Battle Over Bitcoin's History (00:13:47) Acknowledging Contributions and Controversies (00:18:04) The fork wars (00:21:16) Eric Voorhees' perspective (00:23:19) Preserving and accessing primary materials (00:24:14) Bitcoin maximalism and libertarianism (00:26:58) Roger Ver's book on Bitcoin Cash (00:34:36) The imposition of ideologies on Bitcoin (00:41:52) Inconsistencies in Bitcoin ideology (00:42:31) Actions and intentions of Bitfinex and Tether (00:42:57) Perception of anti-crypto sentiment (00:45:38) Berlin Wall analogy and Bitcoin culture (00:46:28) Consensus and alignment within Bitcoin culture (00:50:27) Emergence of new monoculture in Bitcoin (00:59:45) Complexities of Bitcoin sociology (01:00:45) Luke Dashjr and individualist perspectives in Bitcoin (01:02:02) Luke's Defense (01:02:49) Radicalization and Forking (01:03:49) Bitcoin's Future (01:04:37) Mining and Ideology (01:05:22) Bitcoin Maximalism (01:05:56) Scaling and Culture (01:06:44) Bitcoin Users and Ideology (01:07:47) Culture and Goodness (01:08:44) Influence of Bitcoin Uncensored (01:15:19) Bitcoin Maximalism Thesis (01:19:05) Future of Bitcoin Maximalism (01:21:01) The Bitcoin Takeover Podcast (01:22:41) Casey Rodarmor and the Ordinals Protocol (01:23:29) Bitcoin Art and Ordinals Protocol (01:24:26) Layered Structure of Toxicity in Crypto (01:27:16) Early Bitcoin Maximalists and Influential Figures (01:31:22) Bitcoin as Technology vs. Ethereum as Culture (01:32:13) Influence of Amir Taaki and Mircea Popescu (01:38:06) Legacy of Mircea and Anti-Development Culture (01:42:09) Acknowledging Mircea Popescu's Contributions (01:43:31) Bitcoin and Economics (01:44:22) Eric Voskuil and Crypto Economics (01:45:29) Decentralization and Alternate Implementations (01:46:20) Bitcoin's Role in the Crypto Market (01:48:02) Tribalism and Political Impact (01:50:30) Negative Political Action and Bitcoin (01:51:37) Closing Remarks and Appreciation (01:53:16)

Crypsi is the representative of an art collective which expresses its anti-establishment ideas through physical paintings & collages, as well as digitally tokenized ideas. In this episode, he explains why memes are art & why memecoins matter. Time stamps: Bitcoin Art Collective's Origin (00:01:39) Evolution of Crypto Art (00:03:19) Role of Art in Bitcoin Revolution (00:12:21) Intersection of Memes and Art (00:13:28) Importance of Privacy in Bitcoin Art (00:18:15) Debate on Bitcoin Art and NFTs (00:25:37) Bitcoin's Evolution (00:27:06) Art and Bitcoin (00:28:07) Challenges in Bitcoin Art (00:29:23) Crypto Art Movement (00:30:21) Art in Crypto Community (00:35:22) NFTs and Bitcoin (00:38:38) Bitcoin Adoption and Challenges (00:42:10) Crypto Art Tokens (00:44:07) Bitcoin Maximalism and Multi-Chain (00:51:39) The multichain future (00:52:28) The meme coin collective (00:53:10) Exploring alternative chains (00:55:37) The role of crypto art in promoting ideas (00:59:14) Educating about Bitcoin's original ideals (01:00:01) Cypherpunk ideology and Bitcoin's mission (01:04:54) Promotion of Bitcoin-related products (01:09:27) Embracing sovereignty and freedom (01:15:39) The history of securing Bitcoin (01:16:32) Balancing security and accessibility (01:17:35) The evolving landscape of crypto art (01:19:17) The rise of meme coins and NFTs (01:20:18) Challenges with the younger generation (01:25:22) The distribution of crypto tokens (01:28:17) Promoting Bitcoin art and history (01:31:18) Parting thoughts (01:32:25)

Marek Narozniak is a Polish physicist who works on a MimbleWimble implementation that can get added to Bitcoin via extension blocks to become a privacy layer. He also specializes in quantum computing, and busts some FUD about their threat. Time stamps: Introduction to Mimblewimble and Grin (00:00:40) The Privacy Model of Mimblewimble (00:02:07) What is Mimblewimble and Grin? (00:03:47) Scalability and Growth of Grin (00:05:18) Marek's Interest in Grin and Quantum Computing (00:07:16) Challenges and Funding of Grin Development (00:13:36) CoinJoin on Bitcoin (00:15:41) CoinJoin and Privacy in Mimblewimble (00:16:49) The Relevance of Mimblewimble and Grin to Bitcoin (00:22:18) Bitcoin Philosophy (00:24:15) Scalability and Design of Grin (00:25:37) Compatibility with Bitcoin (00:27:31) Quantum Computing and Bitcoin (00:38:31) Quantum Resistance in Blockchain Networks (00:45:02) Node Software and Wallet Connectivity (00:46:27) Running a Node and Raspberry Pi (00:47:49) Quantum Computing and Qubits (00:50:02) Quantum Computers and Bitcoin (00:52:07) Bitcoin and Cryptography (00:52:42) Bitcoin and Investment (00:56:01) Bitcoin Adoption and Use Cases (00:57:31) Polish Bitcoin Association and Government Perception (01:02:46) Government Digital Signature and Privacy (01:04:32) Privacy and Bitcoin (01:05:44)

Back in 2014, Eli Ben-Sasson co-authored the Zerocash paper, which proposed a ZK SNARK system that creates anonymous Bitcoin payments. Around the same time, he also spoke about the compression benefits of zero-knowledge proofs – a full Bitcoin node can be synced within seconds just by verifying against a valid proof. More recently, he became interested in STARKs and built a company around this cryptographic breakthrough. If SNARKs require a trusted setup, then STARKs are a major leap towards trust minimization. If Bitcoin activates the OP_CAT soft fork, then this ZK rollup scheme also becomes possible to enable great privacy and low-sized transactions. Time stamps: Introduction to the Podcast (00:00:35)
 What is a Zero-Knowledge Proof? (00:02:03)
 Vision for Bitcoin Node Synchronization (00:04:09)
 Current State of Zero-Knowledge Proofs (00:05:44)
 Challenges in Implementing Zero-Knowledge Proofs (00:06:38)
 Importance of OP_CAT Opcode (00:09:19)
 Comparison of OP_CAT and OP_CTV (00:12:04)
 Differences Between SNARKs and STARKs (00:13:13)
 Popularity of SNARKs and STARKs (00:17:47)
 Ellie's Journey to Starkware (00:19:52)
 The Future of Zcash (00:23:50)
 The Importance of Zcash Ceremony (00:24:17)
 User Experience Challenges with Zcash (00:24:38)
 Impact of Zcash on Zero-Knowledge Proofs (00:26:13)
 Scaling Solutions: Sidechains vs. Rollups (00:27:03)
 Stark Technology as a Gold Standard (00:27:20)
 Quantum Computing Threats to Bitcoin (00:29:19)
 Proactive Measures Against Quantum Threats (00:31:55)
 Benefits of Starks Beyond Quantum Security (00:32:25)
 Resurgence of the Block Size Debate (00:33:34)
 Future of Bitcoin with Starks (00:34:15)
 Cultural Shift in Bitcoin Development (00:35:12)
 Data Availability in Blockchains (00:37:02)
 Scalability Solutions and State Differences (00:40:34)
 Founding Starkware: Joy and Challenges (00:42:33)
 Drivechain and Stark Integration (00:46:02)
 Efficient Operations for STARKs (00:47:02)
 Bitcoin's Conservative Approach (00:48:22)
 Integration with Bitcoin (00:49:55)
 User Experience with STARKs (00:51:00)
 Understanding Starkware and Starknet (00:53:43)
 Starknet's Features and Capabilities (00:54:49)
 Opportunities for Bitcoin Enthusiasts (00:56:11)
 Potential Collaboration with Elizabeth Stark (00:58:56)
 The Future of STARKs (01:01:20)
 Following Starknet and Starkware (01:04:29)


OpenDelta is a synthetic dollar (stablecoin) that's built on top of Bitcoin's newly-launched Runes protocol. In this episode, co-founders Nick Schteringart & Konstantin Wünscher discuss about how and why they built this.

MWEB was activated on Litecoin's main net in 2022, providing a useful mix of privacy and scalability. It's a fascinating soft fork that's 100% compatible with Bitcoin. In this episode, Charlie Lee explains how MWEB works & why it matters. Time stamps: Introduction to the Episode (00:00:35)
 Bet with Roger Ver (00:01:19)
 Lightning Network Adoption (00:02:49)
 Expectations for Lightning Network (00:04:10)
 Lightning as a Privacy Solution (00:05:11)
 Second Layer Solutions Discussion (00:06:23)
 Block Size and Decentralization (00:08:16)
 Trade-offs in Scaling Solutions (00:10:06)
 Introduction to MWEB (00:11:51)
 Technical Specifications of MWEB (00:14:45)
 Financial Privacy as a Human Right (00:16:46)
 Controversy Surrounding Samurai Wallet (00:18:18)
 Mixing and Privacy in MWEB (00:19:52)
 Confidential Transactions in MWEB (00:20:34)
 Confidential Transactions Explained (00:21:32)
 Mimblewimble's Cut-Through Feature (00:22:55)
 CoinJoin and Privacy (00:24:07)
 Pegging Out from MWEB (00:25:09)
 Exchanges and Privacy Tools (00:28:33) Grin++ Integration with MWEB (00:30:42)
 Fungibility and MWEB (00:32:58)
 Ordinal Theory and MWEB (00:35:14) CoinJoin Implementation Challenges (00:36:40)
 MWEB's Similarities to Grin (00:38:20)
 MWEB's Compatibility with Bitcoin (00:39:38)
 Litecoin's Divergence from Bitcoin (00:40:43)
 Litecoin's Role in Bitcoin Scaling (00:42:05)
 Activation of SegWit and its Impact (00:42:16)
 Public Support for Litecoin (00:43:35)
 Sidechains & Trade-offs (00:44:56) Interest in Drivechains (00:47:47)
 Litecoin's Longevity and Usability (00:49:56)
 Physical Bitcoin Collectibles (00:51:50)
 Self-Custody Solutions (00:55:52)
 Concerns Over Complexity in Custody (00:54:04)
 Future Plans for MWEB (00:58:28) Risks in Privacy Implementations (01:00:00) Future of Litecoin Beyond MWEB (01:01:57)
 Inflation Bug Disclosure (01:03:23)
 Developer Collaboration (01:04:17)
 Open Source Benefits (01:06:08)
 Craig Wright Controversy (01:06:58)
 ETFs and Demand (01:09:25)
 Ethereum's ETF Challenges (01:10:32)
 Staking and ETFs (01:11:20)
 Satoshi Identity Debate (01:12:27)
 Magical Crypto Friends Comeback? (01:13:12)
 Innovation Beyond Bitcoin (01:14:32)
 Multi-Chain Future (01:18:20)

David Bailey is the owner of Bitcoin Magazine. Ideologically, he is a Bitcoin maximalist who wants everything to happen on Bitcoin and get traded for BTC. During this episode, we also mint a special ordinal... which you can buy for 3.125 BTC! Time stamps: Bitcoin Maximalism (00:04:03) Inscribing Ordinal 70326676 on Bitcoin (00:11:57) Criticism and Autonomy in Transactions (00:22:06) RGB Protocol and Color Coins (00:25:42) Bitcoin maximalism and control (00:26:02) OP_CAT and use cases (00:28:12) CTV vs. OP_CAT (00:29:35) Bitcoin fees and self-sovereignty (00:35:32) Scaling and vision alignment (00:42:39) Favorite L2 proposals and Lightning Network (00:47:55) Bitcoin Development and Layer Twos (00:51:41) BitVM and Rootstock (00:52:35) BitVM's Impact and Developer Interest (00:54:21) Layer Two Labs and Bitcoin Unity (00:57:25) Controversy and Character Assassination (01:00:38) Tether and Bitfinex (01:07:36) Liquid and Sidechain Adoption (01:12:36) Permissionless Transactions and Trust Minimization (01:15:20) Maximalist Support for Software They Didn’t Test (01:16:48)
 The Cult of Satoshi (01:21:29)
 Use Cases for Bitcoin (01:22:49)
 The Evolution of Bitcoin Conferences (01:23:57)
 Building a Global Bitcoin Community (01:25:13)
 Importance of Diverse Ideas (01:26:23)
 Hyperbitcoinization Mission (01:27:41)
 Political Dimensions of Conferences (01:28:19)
 Navigating Speaker Boycotts (01:29:24)
 Community Engagement and Perspectives (01:30:10) Maintaining Values in Bitcoin (01:31:12)
 Nature of Bitcoin's Value (01:36:20) Block Size Debate (01:38:22)
 Future of Bitcoin Scaling (01:39:58)
 Understanding Perspectives (01:41:20)
 Shared Cancel Culture Experience (01:42:12) Advocating for Ross Ulbricht (01:43:08)
 Closing Remarks (01:44:06)

Aaron Day has been a bitcoiner since 2012 – and in the aftermath of the scaling wars, he decided to support the big block camp due to ideological reasons. Today, Aaron is concerned that adoption might not catch up with the rise of CBDCs. Time stamps: Aaron Day’s Work (00:00:54) Defining Central Bank Digital Currency (00:02:04) Comparison of CBDC with Existing Banking System (00:03:51) Historical and International Perspectives on Monetary Control (00:08:32) Globalization and CBDCs (00:11:21) Potential for Competition and Surveillance (00:12:31) Dystopian Aspects of CBDC Pilots (00:17:07) Freedom vs. Tyranny in Digital Space (00:19:25) Bitcoin's Role in CBDC Environment (00:22:09) The shift from digital cash to digital gold (00:23:34) The impact of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) (00:24:43) Concerns about Bitcoin's decentralization and scalability (00:25:49) The history and motivations behind Bitcoin development (00:26:54) Challenges in mainstream adoption and perception of Bitcoin (00:27:02) The role of Bitcoin in a changing financial landscape (00:28:03) The narrative shift and its impact on public awareness (00:29:17) Reflection on the impact of the narrative shift in Bitcoin and its implications on public awareness and understanding of cryptocurrency. The potential threat to peer-to-peer commerce (00:30:13) The evolving landscape of cryptocurrency and its implications (00:31:20) The impact of blockchain analysis and privacy concerns (00:32:38) The potential for controlled demolition of the fiat system (00:45:55) The need for mass adoption of peer-to-peer digital currency (00:48:07) Bitcoin's decline in comparison to traditional financial systems (00:49:07) Challenges and limitations of onboarding Bitcoin as cash (00:51:31) The urgency to stop digital tyranny (00:53:25) Comparison of gold, silver, and crypto as mediums of exchange (00:55:10) Considerations for resilient cryptocurrency options (00:57:25) Warning against Bitcoin ETFs and the potential for confiscation (01:02:29) Promotion of self-custody and privacy solutions (01:05:57) Concerns about privacy and blockchain analysis in Bitcoin (01:08:01) The need to stop fiat to prevent CBDC dominance (01:09:46) The government's halt with respect to fiat currency (01:11:13) Awakening and new audience of people (01:12:27) Religious concerns and distrust of CBDCs (01:13:22) Developing parallel economies (01:14:19) Bitcoin Cash as a potential CBDC (01:15:53) Global pursuit of CBDCs (01:17:01) Scalability and decentralization (01:23:33) Privacy and running a node (01:28:00) Challenges with Bitcoin as an alternative to CBDCs (01:30:13) Value proposition of Bitcoin (01:33:11) Bitcoin's Censorship Resistance (01:34:38) Bitcoin's History and Chain Analysis (01:35:44) Legal Liability and Bitcoin Devs (01:36:41) Censorship Resistance and Transaction Validations (01:41:03) Impact of CBDCs on Bitcoin's Usefulness (01:42:25) Bitcoin's Potential and Sidechains (01:45:40) Blockchain Applications and Censorship Resistance (01:48:56) Threat of CBDCs and Digital Tyranny (01:51:33) Short-Term Solution and Self-Custody (01:53:04) Bitcoin's Scalability and CBDC Competition (01:55:36) Advocacy and Resources (01:58:12)

Ray Youssef is the CEO of NoOnes, a P2P marketplace which enables people from the Global South to exchange bitcoin for gift cards or local currencies. As he describes it, NoOnes is the platform where "everyone eats" – meaning that all parties make advantageous trades that help them feed themselves and their families. Consequently, Ray is an advocate of free market money who agrees with Roger Ver on some points. In this episode, he explains what those points are and why he believes Bitcoin was truly hijacked.

Charlie Lee is the creator of Litecoin and the current managing director of the Litecoin Foundation. Some may also remember him as Engineering Director at Coinbase. But very notably, Charlie Lee is one of the earliest believers in the power of the Lightning Network and an investor in Lightning Labs. I've decided to invite Charlie on the Bitcoin Takeover podcast for the third time in order to ask him a simple yet puzzling question: how come Litecoin is still successful and thrives in a world where the Lightning Network exists and offers instant transactions on Bitcoin? Furthermore, I tried to figure out what it is that makes Litecoin successful 13 years on and how it can support Bitcoin with scaling.

Polish bitcoiner & libertarian Tomek Kolodziejczuk is co-organizing the 2nd annual Bitcoin Film Fest. In 2024, the event happens at the same time as the European Halving Party. In this episode, we talk about Bitcoin-related art, the current state of cinema, and why the halving (or halvening?) is such a major event.

Amaury Séchet is the developer who forked Bitcoin to create Bitcoin Cash in August 2017. A year later, he became one of the first people to find out about the inflation bug in Bitcoin – yet he chose to not exploit it and collaborate with the Bitcoin Core devs instead. Deadalnix was also one of the first large blockers to figure out that Craig Wright is not Satoshi. On the other hand, he appears to be a fan of dev taxes. Why did he not destroy Bitcoin? Why do large blockers keep on creating forks? How was Craig Wright exposed among the big blocker circles? In this episode, we learn more about this lesser known part of Bitcoin history.

Adam Soltys is a Canadian bitcoiner, best known for his work on Raretoshi – a marketplace for Liquid network NFTs. Cole is a marketer who likes the Lightning network. Together, they built Coinos: a custodial & newbie-friendly Lightning wallet.

As of 2024, Roger Ver has been in Bitcoin for 7 years and in Bitcoin Cash for 7 years. This episode is a reflection on his journey and an attempt to bring back one of the greatest Bitcoin advocates and entrepreneurs.

Thanks to the efforts of CommerceBlock CEO Nicholas Gregory and CTO Tom Trevethan, Statechains are now a reality on the MercuryLayer. Originally designed by Ruben Somsen, Statechains serve the purpose of transferring ownership of bitcoins in a private, scalable, and affordable environment. However, the original Statechain design requires the ANYPREVOUT soft fork – something Bitcoin didn't get. But thanks to the efforts of Nicholas Gregory and Thomas Trevethan, MercuryLayer works around the limitations to make Statechains happen without the need for a soft fork.

Bryan Bishop is a computer programmer who currently moderates the Bitcoin-dev mailing list and considers a position as BIP editor. In this episode, he talks about his work in Bitcoin, his Webcash experiment, and why he is an advocate of biokaching.

As the CEO of Synonym, John Carvalho has experimented with many Bitcoin layers & protocols – including OmniBolt, Lightning & sidechains. In this episode, he explains what lessons he's learned and why he believes in more conservative ways to scale Bitcoin.

Eric Voskuil is the maintainer of Libbitcoin & the author of Cryptoeconomics. In this episode, he offers details about the Libbitcoin incident that took place in the summer of 2023 and also criticizes some aspects of the cult of Michael Saylor.

Fiatjaf is the creator of Nostr, a decentralized social media protocol which enables everyone around the world to communicate without censorship. Surprisingly, he doesn't agree with some existing Nostr software, no longer likes Lightning & promotes BIP300. Nostr Bitcoin and Lightning (00:00:47) Fiatjaf's creation Nostr, association with Bitcoin, and differing opinions on its development and use. Creation of Nostr (00:01:55) Decentralization and BlueSky (00:07:31) Comparison between Nostr and BlueSky, and the importance of decentralization. Peter Todd's Criticism (00:09:33) Fiatjaf's response to Peter Todd's criticism and the misunderstanding of Nostr's decentralization. Nostr's Popularity and Lightning Criticism (00:15:31) The influence of Jack Dorsey on Nostr's growth and the controversial opinion on Lightning's limitations. The Future of Bitcoin and Lightning (00:20:43) Fiatjaf's skepticism about Lightning as the future of Bitcoin, deferring to Antoine Riard as a reliable source for insights. Challenges of running nodes (00:23:21) The challenges and limitations of running Lightning nodes for normal users and the evolution of the uncle Jim model. Issues with small transactions (00:26:11) The impracticality of sending very small transactions in the Lightning network due to fees and protocol limitations. Difficulties of being a custodian (00:29:21) The challenges and limitations of being a custodian in the Lightning network. Complexities of Lightning protocol (00:34:18) Exploration of the complex features and potential bugs in the Lightning protocol, as well as the challenges of routing and receiving payments. Struggles of managing a routing node (00:36:40) Personal experiences and challenges faced while managing a routing node in the Lightning network. Drivechains for scaling Bitcoin (00:39:29) Discussion on the potential of Drivechains as a solution for scaling Bitcoin, including technical and consensus considerations. Criticism of Drivechains (00:42:12) Concerns regarding Drivechains, including the potential increase in human politics and voting processes. BIP301 and voting concerns (00:43:24) Discussion on the automatic voting process and concerns about adding politics and complexity to the Bitcoin network. Focusing on Future Bitcoiners (00:47:04) BitVM and Roll-Ups (00:53:14) Discussion about the BitVM project and roll-up systems, including skepticism and concerns about its overhyped nature. State of Soft Forks (00:59:22) Conversation about the absence of soft forks and the emergence of workarounds in the Bitcoin space. Liquid and Decentralization (01:02:48) The nature of Liquid as a blockchain and the concerns about its decentralization and reliance on geopolitics for security. The vilification of miners (01:04:31)The narrative shift in Bitcoin, from miners activating changes to users activating with full nodes. Miners' role in soft fork activation (01:05:46) Criticism of Drivechains (01:06:22) Two-way pegs and price (01:08:17) Concerns about the value of pegged BTC on sidechains and potential market fluctuations. Arguments against miner theft from sidechains (01:09:30) Debunking the idea of miners stealing from successful sidechains and its impact on Bitcoin's value. Mining centralization and Drivechains (01:11:52) Miner-extracted value (MEV) and its relevance (01:15:18) Exploration of miner-extracted value (MEV) and its applicability in the Bitcoin context. Accidental hard fork and network cooperation (01:17:13) LayerTwo Labs and Drivechain adoption (01:18:26) Can LayerTwo Labs activate Drivechains & push adoption? Challenges of running Bitcoin nodes (01:21:02) On the difficulty of running Bitcoin nodes and UTXO set management.

Bastien and Baudoin are the creators and main promoters of Satochip: an affordable self-custody solution which makes use of the smart card technology to provide hardware wallet features. In this episode, they explain how Satochip works & why it's unique.

Alexei Zamyatin is an academic cryptographer who works on the Build on Bitcoin projects. His approach to scaling Bitcoin with second layers involves some unconventional methods, which he describes in this interview. Zero Knowledge Proofs and Rollups (00:01:21) Discussion of the development of layer two solutions, including zero knowledge proofs and rollups. Defining BitVM Rollups (00:01:58) Explanation of the debate surrounding the definition of zk rollups and the introduction of the new category of BitVM rollups. Citrea's Approach (00:04:41) Analysis of Citrea's zk optimized BitVM rollup and its approach to sidechains and rollups. Zero Knowledge Proofs and Rollups Explained (00:05:26) Explanation of the concepts of zero knowledge proofs and rollups in the context of layer two solutions. Comparison of Rollups and Sidechains (00:12:41) Comparison of sidechains and zk rollups, discussing their differences and promises. The Vision of Build on Bitcoin (00:18:48) Discussion of the problems to be solved in the development of layer two solutions and the vision of the Build on Bitcoin project. EVM: The easiest way to build decentralized applications (00:22:54) Alexei Zamyatin advocates for the ease of building decentralized applications using EVM, while pointing out to the challenges of building infrastructure from scratch. Liquidity and Stablecoins on Rollups (00:23:53) The challenges of bringing stablecoins onto rollups and the dependency on centralized parties for stablecoin provision. Bootstrapping BOB as an ETH Rollup (00:25:47) Alexei xplains the decision to bootstrap BOB as an ETH rollup, inheriting Ethereum security and bridging assets. Pragmatic approach to Bitcoin and Ethereum (00:30:06) Alexei Zamyatin discusses the pragmatic approach to Bitcoin and Ethereum, acknowledging the need to cater to user preferences and solve real-world problems. Building centralized layer on Bitcoin and counterparty models (00:37:03) The trade-offs of building centralized layers on Bitcoin and the limitations of counterparty and other models. Satochip and IVPN ads (00:42:15) Rapid fire presentation of Satochip and IVPN ads. Drivechains proposal and its drawbacks (00:43:20) The Drivechains proposal, its potential usefulness, and the technical details and drawbacks associated with it. Drivechains (00:44:19) Discussion on the activation of drivechains and the need to prove demand for their implementation. Mining and MEV (00:46:29) Exploration of miner extractable value (MEV) and its potential impact on Bitcoin's consensus and mining incentives. Covenants for Bitcoin (00:49:17) The need for covenants in Bitcoin to facilitate the development of sidechains, layer twos, and rollups. Activation Proposals (00:51:06) Debate over the activation of opcode proposals, such as OP_CTV and OP_CAT, and their implications for Bitcoin's development. Following Build on Bitcoin (00:52:47) How to keep up with the Build on Bitcoin project and relevant resources for learning about Bitcoin rollups.

ZK rollups are certainly promising, as they can bring scalability and privacy to Bitcoin. In this episode, Orkun Kilic talks about Citrea: the first protocol to enable ZK rollups on Bitcoin. He explains the advantages, the tradeoffs & why you should use.

Andrew Poelstra is a mathematician who heads the research department at Blockstream. Over the years, he experimented with many Bitcoin OP codes – some of which are also enabled on Liquid. In this episode, he explains why he likes and prefers OP_CAT.

Paul Sztorc returns with a twist: he's talking about sidechains, rollups, BitVM, Lightning, and ever other scaling solution... but can't say the words "Drivechain" or "BIP 300". If he breaks the rule, he must send a Lightning transaction and drink vodka.

Aaron van Wirdum is a veteran Bitcoin journalist who has been writing for Bitcoin Magazine since 2014. On January 3rd 2024, after nearly five years of working on this project, he launched The Genesis Book: a reflection on the history before Bitcoin.

Nicolas Dorier talks about the early days of BTCPay Server, activating SegWit before it was cool on NBitcoin, contributing to TumbleBit, writing a book about coding Bitcoin projects in C#, and working with colored coins.

Robin Linus revolutionized Bitcoin development in 2023 with BitVM: a virtual machine that can do off-chain computation for the purpose of enabling smart contracts. With it, Bitcoin can get trust minimized sidechains. But there are so many more uses cases!

Agustin Kassis & Mariano are Argentinian bitcoiners who work in a Fight Club-style house to build La Wallet: a Lightning wallet which is associated with a Nostr account and enables users to have both a payments card and a digital identity device.

Bitcoin & Friends was a pretty popular original cartoon back in 2019 and 2020. On January 3rd 2024, thanks to some major breakthroughs in animation software, the series is getting a reboot which takes the story to a whole new level. Stay tuned!

Tuur Demeester is a prominent Bitcoin investor who strongly believes in the power of Bitcoin-only companies. In this episode, he explains how and why he invests in Bitcoin projects, suggests when market tops are reached & comments on the Supra Cycle.

Kevin Loaec is the CEO of Wizardsardine – the Bitcoin company that builds Liana wallet, a powerful piece of software which optimizes for inheritance. In this episode, Kevin explains why miniscript matters & how he rates the most popular hardware wallets.

Ryan Condron has been a Bitcoin miner for longer than a decade. He started out with a GPU rack, upgraded his rig to FPGAs, and then was one of the first people to run ASICs. Today, he aims to decentralize hashrate with Lumerin – a hashrate marketplace. Ryan Condron has been mining Bitcoin for longer than a decade. In the beginning, he started out with a rack of video cards. Soon, he had to upgrade his hardware to include FPGAs. In less than a year, ASICs became a reality and every serious miner had to keep up. In this episode, Ryan Condron talks about his personal experience with Bitcoin mining and also presents the research he's done on the subject of decentralizing hash rate. Since hardware distribution and ownership is difficult to change, he decided to create Lumerin: a marketplace for hash rate, where people can take control of ASIC miners by renting them. This way, they don't only collect the mining rewards (as was the case with many cloud mining services). They also make decisions on behalf of the mining hardware to suit their financial interests and/or ideological beliefs. ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Early Days of Bitcoin Mining (00:00:48) The conversation starts with the guest, Ryan Condron, discussing his early experience with Bitcoin mining in 2012 and the shift to mining altcoins. Rise of ASICs and Pooled Mining (00:03:23) The discussion shifts to the emergence of ASICs and the transition from solo mining to pooled mining, highlighting the centralization risks associated with mining hardware. Decentralization Challenges (00:05:34) The conversation delves into the challenges of maintaining decentralization in mining, the historical vision of mining, and the shift towards proof of stake in new projects. Evolution of Mining Hardware (00:06:44) The evolution from CPU to GPU to FPGA mining is discussed, along with the implications for decentralization and the development of new algorithms to resist ASICs. Efforts to Restore Satoshi's Vision (00:24:06) Ryan Condron introduces his paper on the decentralization of control and explores the challenges and solutions to restoring Satoshi's vision of decentralization in Bitcoin mining. Decentralizing Mining Devices (00:26:41) Discussion on decentralizing mining devices by allowing them to be sold on a decentralized marketplace, enabling global control and democratization. Decoupling Control and Ownership (00:27:52) Exploration of how separating control from ownership of mining devices can lead to more democratization in selecting mining pools and amassing hash power. Decentralized Marketplace for Hash Power (00:33:24) Explanation of how smart contracts enable the decentralized buying and selling of hash power on a global marketplace, revolutionizing the concept of a global commodities market. Lumerin Node Setup and Usage (00:34:53) Details on setting up and using the Lumen node for purchasing and streaming hash power, including considerations for device usage and availability. Expanding the Marketplace and Future Possibilities (00:40:11) Exploration of the potential for the Lumerin marketplace to trade various data streams beyond hash power, and the future possibility of launching the same marketplace on Bitcoin. Information and Personal Contact (00:41:02) Guidance on where to find more information about Lumen and how to follow the speaker personally.

Sergio Demian Lerner has made a plethora of contributions to Bitcoin: from finding early security bugs, and all the way to designing & launching the first sidechain RSK. In this interview, he talks about his work & research – with a focus on the future.

John Light, Super Testnet and Alexei Zamyatin are part of the new generation of Bitcoin developers. They like zero knowledge proofs, they're opinionated when defending covenants & they are not afraid to look for breakthroughs beyond the Bitcoin research.

Edan Yago talks about Sovryn: a financial application which allows users to take loans against their bitcoin. It's built on Rootstock (RSK, Bitcoin's first sidechain) and it conceptually goes against most mainstream narratives about what Bitcoin can do.

Alexis Roussel is a man of many talents, with plenty of accomplishments in his resume. But most notably, he is a bitcoiner who's working to build the Nym mixnet system and he's fighting for the rights of the individual in Switzerland.

Hernán Marino is an Argentinian bitcoiner who recently started contributing to Bitcoin Core. In this episode, he talks about his views on Bitcoin maximalism, what it's like to be a bitcoiner in a hyperinflationary country, and his hopes for the future.

Sergi Delgado is an engineer at Chaincode Labs, whose specialization and previous academic research is in peer to peer (P2P) networks. In this episode, he talks about his views on existing proposals to improve Bitcoin. In this podcast episode, Chaincode Labs engineer Sergi Delgado talks about Bitcoin development challenges, the Lightning network, and the importance of testing and security. Sergi talks about his lightning simulation software, SimLN, and its role in improving the lightning network's reliability. He addresses a recent LN vulnerability, the role of watchtowers, and the balance between decentralization, privacy, and user experience. The conversation also covers Bitcoin core development, skepticism towards altcoins and layer two solutions, and the complexities of protocol changes. Sergi emphasizes careful analysis when adding new features to Bitcoin and shares his positive experience working with the talented team at Chaincode Labs.

Wasabi Wallet now offers a "Buy Anything" button that lets you buy physical items with greater privacy?! How does that even work? ZK Snacks CEO Max Hillebrand & ShopInBit CEO Lando Rothbardian join the show to explain everything about this integration.

Bitcoin has recently fixed the presidential elections in Guatemala. How so? Rafael Cordon of Simple Proof is here to explain all about the power of OpenTimeStamps and how they can leverage the Bitcoin blockchain to prove that something really happened. (00:01:12) Rafael Cordon discusses the use of Bitcoin in the Guatemalan elections to prevent fraud and uphold the integrity of digital information. (00:03:39) Rafael explains the OpenTimeStamps protocol created by Peter Todd, which enables anyone to timestamp documents on the Bitcoin blockchain and store a hash using a Merkle tree. (00:08:47) Rafael describes how Simple Proof integrates with the preliminary result transmission system in the Guatemalan elections to timestamp the vote tally sheets on the Bitcoin blockchain, providing a way to verify the authenticity of the documents. (00:12:37) The discussion revolves around how Bitcoin can be used to prove the authenticity of voting information and debunk claims of tampering. (00:14:00) The conversation focuses on the benefits of using timestamping in elections, including cost savings, transparency, and the ability to reorganize elections if needed. (00:15:19) Rafael Cordon and Vlad discuss the potential applications of timestamping beyond elections, such as intellectual property, the justice system, and digital evidence. (00:23:33) Rafael Cordon explains how governments initially resisted adopting Bitcoin and cloud technologies, but later realized the benefits of using them for unalterable information and data storage. (00:24:55) Rafael Cordon suggests that using Bitcoin as a means to safeguard digital information can lead to a broader adoption of Bitcoin as a form of money. (00:26:31) We debate the use of NFTs and open timestamps to prove the authenticity and provenance of digital assets, such as artwork, and the potential for tracking the number of creations by famous artists. (00:35:36) Vlad and Rafael discuss the response from the Bitcoin community after an article was published detailing Bitcoin's role in the elections in Guatemala. (00:37:19) Vlad and Rafael Cordon talk about Carlinho's vision of using Bitcoin to bring together Central American countries under a unified currency. (00:42:39) Rafael describes the Bitcoin community in Guatemala, which includes startups addressing remittance use cases and the Bitcoin Lake experiment in Lake Atitlán. The speakers also express their preference for grassroots adoption over government imposition. (00:47:11) Discussion on the importance of legal interpretation and regulatory clarity for large corporations in adopting new technologies like Bitcoin. (00:48:11) Exploration of how startups have more room to maneuver and take risks due to the absence of specific laws regulating new technologies. (00:49:37) The significance of regulatory clarity in encouraging large corporations to adopt new technologies, with the example of El Salvador's legal recognition of Bitcoin. The Utopian Vision of Online Voting (00:59:10) Vlad Costea describes his initial enthusiasm for online voting and the belief that it would transform a broken representative democracy into a utopian direct democracy. Underutilized Technology and Consultancy Services (01:00:29) The Power of Open Timestamps (01:01:23)

Lea Petrasova is the president of the Vexl Foundation, one of the project's co-founders, and certainly one of the most ardent supporters of exchanging bitcoin in a peer to peer fashion. In this episode, she explains why you should consider using Vexl. Vexl: Introduction and Purpose (00:01:51) Lea Petrasova introduces Vexl as a mobile app that allows users to buy and sell Bitcoin peer-to-peer without going through a centralized exchange or even benevolent third party. Vexl: Comparison to Tinder (00:02:48) Lea explains that Vexl can be compared to Tinder, but users can only connect with people within their social circle, making it safer than meeting someone randomly. Vexl: Drawbacks of Other Peer-to-Peer Exchanges (00:04:04) Lea discusses the three major drawbacks of other peer-to-peer exchanges: global order book, reputation model, and usability. Real-world reputation in the app (00:12:17) Lea explains how Vexl brings users' real-world reputation into the app, allowing them to see common contacts and social circles when buying or selling Bitcoin. Using phone numbers as identifiers (00:15:27) Lea discusses why Vexl uses phone numbers as identifiers, highlighting their widespread usage and the ability to match users with contacts and contacts of contacts. Vexl's monetization model (00:16:54) Lea Petrasova explains that Vexl is a free, open-source project and a gift from Satoshi Labs to the community, with no plans for monetization or collecting fees from Bitcoin peer-to-peer trades. No fees, no data collection, and open-source(00:24:15) Lea Petrasova explains the absence of fees and data collection in Vexl, as well as its open-source nature. Expansion of Vexl to other markets and the gradual scaling process (00:25:45) Lea discusses the expansion of Vexl to other markets, such as Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the UK, and Italy, and the gradual scaling process observed in these territories. Usability improvements and new features planned for Vexl (00:26:59) Lea Petrasova highlights the focus on improving usability and adding new features to Vexl, such as a trade calculator and better map functionality. Vexl and Chill (00:36:47) Lea discusses how buying bitcoin through Vexl eliminates the complexities and concerns associated with centralized exchanges. The Origin of Vexl (00:38:15) Lea explains that the term "vexl" dates back to communist Europe and refers to proxy merchants who exchanged foreign currencies. The Importance of Peer-to-Peer and No KYC (00:43:40) Lea emphasizes the need for peer-to-peer transactions without KYC requirements to maintain the financial sovereignty and intended purpose of Bitcoin.

Firefish enables people to borrow fiat money against their bitcoins in a trust-minimized way, using a multisig setup with oracles. Martin and Igor, the two FireFish co-founders, talk about how and why you should be using their service. **Firefish: A New Use Case for Bitcoin as Collateral (00:01:54)** Discussion on how Firefish is using Bitcoin as collateral for loans and expanding the use cases for Bitcoin. **Firefish: Non-Custodial Platform and Peer-to-Peer Marketplace (00:04:29)** Explanation of how Firefish is a non-custodial platform and operates as a peer-to-peer marketplace for Bitcoin-backed loans. **Firefish's technical details (00:09:26)** Explanation of the technical aspects of Firefish, including the use of multi-sig and the different roles in the contract, such as borrower, lender, liquidator, payment oracle, and price oracle. **The Zombie Apocalypse Transaction (00:11:55)** Discussion about a transaction with a time lock that allows users to recover their bitcoin in the event of a zombie apocalypse. **How Oracles Work (00:12:30)** Explanation of how oracles function in the Bitcoin network and their role in verifying Firefish transactions. **Firefish's Target Audience and Use Cases (00:16:01)** Discussion about the target audience for the Firefish platform, including bitcoiners, institutions holding bitcoin, and traditional finance entities interested in funding bitcoin-backed loans. **Dispute Resolution Rules (00:23:41)** Discussion on the dispute resolution rules in Firefish platform for resolving conflicts between borrowers and lenders in fiat transactions. **Changing Perspective of Traditional Finance (00:28:30)** Exploration of how Firefish platform allows non-bitcoin native entities to become lenders and how it changes their perception of bitcoin. **Open Source Code (00:32:28)** Importance of open source code in Firefish platform for security and user trust, with plans to make the code open source in the future. **KYC and Anonymity (00:34:00)** Discussion about the need for KYC (Know Your Customer) in the banking system and the challenges of maintaining anonymity when dealing with fiat currency. **Implementing Stablecoins (00:38:10)** Consideration of implementing stablecoins as an option, discussing the trade-off between convenience and privacy/risk for users.

Lisa Neight (creator of the Base58 Bitcoin academy) and Calle (creator of Cashu) joined the Bitcoin Takeover podcast during the Hackers Congress in Prague. They speak about free open source software, popular Bitcoin scaling solutions, cars & more!

The 11th edition of Labitconf takes place in Buenos Aires this year, just a week before the final round of the presidential elections in Argentina. Rodolfo Andragnes tells us all about the event & his hopes for a libertarian president like Javier Milei.

Philipp Hoenisch is the founder of 101010: a project which aims to create synthetic bitcoin-backed stablecoins on top of the Lightning network. These stablecoins aim to minimize trust, as there's no central issuer or institution in the middle.

Phil Zimmermann is the creator of PGP & the cryptographer who made it safe to publish cryptography projects on the internet. In this episode, Mr. Zimmermann talks about Bitcoin, his opinion on various cryptography projects & his friendship with Hal Finney. This episode is sponsored by Wasabi wallet, Cryptosteel, Satodime, and ShopInBit. Time stamps: The cypherpunk movement in the 1990s [00:02:47] Discussion about Phil Zimmermann's involvement with the cypherpunk scene and his ideological alignment with their policies. The motivation behind making PGP open source [00:07:30] Exploration of Phil Zimmermann's reasons for making PGP open source, including the desire for extensive peer review and the benefits of strong encryption software. The impact of PGP on the development of cryptography protocols [00:10:47] Phil Zimmermann discusses how the publication of PGP, including its source code, taught many people how to do public key cryptography in software and contributed to the emergence of various protocols. Hal Finney and Tom Hanks [00:13:11] Discussion about the potential casting of Tom Hanks to play Hal Finney in a movie. Hal Finney's Role in PGP Development [00:13:36] Exploration of Hal Finney's contribution to the development of PGP and the trust model implementation. Proof of Work and Penny Black Project [00:14:20] Explanation of proof of work and its use in solving the double spending problem and reducing email spam through the Penny Black project. 17:48 – Did Phil Zimmermann ever think about inventing Bitcoin? 19:13 – Silent Phone. 20:40 – Encryption is fast. 22:45 – When did Phil Zimmermann hear about Bitcoin for the first time? 24:07 – Is Phil Zimmermann proud of enabling Bitcoin? 24:44 – Phil Zimmermann's disappointment about Bitcoin. Improving Bitcoin and Carbon Footprint [00:26:39] Discussion on ideas for improving Bitcoin, particularly in relation to reducing its carbon footprint. David Chaum's Ideas and Patents [00:29:47] Conversation about David Chaum's ideas and patents, and their impact on the acceptance and development of electronic cash, including Bitcoin. End-to-End Encryption and National Security [00:32:49] Exploration of the importance of end-to-end encryption for preserving democracy and national security, particularly in the context of networks controlled by potentially adversarial entities like China.

Michael Bumann (aka Bumi) is a Lightning network developer best known for working on Joule and creating Alby. Today, Alby is one of the most popular wallets for sending and receiving Nostr zaps. In this episode, he explains more about his work & vision.

In this episode, Paul Sztorc reacts to 3 of the most significant reactions to Drivechains: Shinobi's article from Bitcoin Magazine, the Baltic Honeybadger 2023 panel which mostly covered Drivechains, and his Tabconf 2023 debate with Peter Todd.

For the past 4 years, Sam Lee has been the main organizer of the Bitcoin meetup in Hong Kong. In this episode, Sam tells us what it's like to be a bitcoiner in Hong Kong and how the experience differs from the one in Mainland China.

At Baltic Honeybadger 2023, BTCPay server announced a new mobile app which will run LDK/Spiral software in the background to make the merchant experience as simple as can get. In this drunkast with Pavlenex, Kukks & Anna, they explain how it all works.

In the middle of a more aggressive campaign to promote a soft fork that enables two-way pegged sidechains via BIP 300/301, Layer Two Labs CEO Paul Sztorc has been accused of attacking Bitcoin and being the new Mike Hearn. But are Drivechains that bad?

Jameson Lopp, popular cypherpunk and and advocate for anarcho-capitalism, makes his Bitcoin Takeover podcast debut to talk about his work at Casa, self-custody, his views on Bitcoin maximalism, and why it's important to test your backup devices.

Fadi Barbàra is a researcher from the University of Turin who works on Bitcoin privacy. His new project, DMix, promises to offer better privacy than CoinJoins by integrating a pre-mix transaction that makes use of Taproot multisigs. Fadi's background and introduction (00:02:11) Discussion about Fadi Barbara's work on DMix and Bitcoin privacy, his research in Turin at a state-funded university, and his journey into Bitcoin. Explanation of DMix and how it works (00:10:13) Overview of DMix as a two-transaction protocol, the use of CoinJoin in the second transaction, and the three-phase process of the mix. The transaction threshold signature (00:14:40) Explanation of how transaction threshold signatures work and the difference between a multisig and an aggregated signature. The goal of DMix (00:18:53) Comparison between DMix and other coinjoin protocols, with a focus on the goal of removing the need for a coordinator or centralization. Scalability and the limit of mixes (00:26:49) Discussion on the technical limit of mixes based on transaction size, the trade-off between decentralization and popularity, and the potential for larger transaction sizes. Dmix as a privacy facilitator (00:29:44) Discussion on how the mix in DMix improves privacy by creating unlinkability and the trade-off between privacy and protocol rules. Incentivizing participation in the mixing system (00:33:39) Exploration of the research phase regarding financial incentives for users to keep their coins in the mixing system and the importance of liquidity. Toxic change and its elimination in DMix (00:38:23) Explanation of how DMix handles toxic change by creating a greatest common divisor of the coins being exchanged, ensuring no toxic output in the final mix transaction. Address Reuse and Blockchain Privacy (00:43:18) Fadi Barbara discusses the importance of address reuse in blockchain privacy and the ongoing study of address reuse on the blockchain. Trust in DMix and Anonymity Set (00:45:42) Fadi addresses the issue of trust in DMix and the potential risk of participants belonging to chain analysis. He also discusses the use of multi-party computation to enhance privacy. DMix in Closed and Open Settings (00:50:57) The speaker discusses the suitability of DMix in closed settings, such as exchanges, and the ongoing efforts to make it suitable for open settings where anyone can participate. The proposed soft forks and Drivechains (00:57:04) Discussion about the potential solutions to Bitcoin's privacy problems through proposed soft forks and Drivechains. Controversy between Wasabi and Samourai wallet (00:58:20) Exploration of the differences and opinions on Wasabi and Samourai, their strengths, weaknesses, and potential for improvement. Statechains and coin swap idea (01:03:26) Evaluation of the concept of statechains and coin swap as a method of transferring ownership of coins without on-chain transactions, including the benefits and challenges associated with the approach. Using DMX in conjunction with existing solutions like CoinJoin or CoinSwap (01:11:35) Vlad asks Fadi if DMix can be used alongside other privacy solutions or if it is meant to replace them. Confidential transactions and the need for soft or hard forks (01:12:26) Fadi Barbara discusses how confidential transactions, which require changes at the protocol level, are necessary for achieving better privacy. He also mentions that the Elements project is currently testing these features. How listeners can help and contribute to the development of DMix (01:20:08) Vlad asks Fadi Barbara how listeners can support the development of DMix, including spreading the word, donating, and providing criticism and feedback.

Martin Habovštiak is a cypherpunk from Slovakia, best known for contributing with code to many open source Bitcoin projects (Electrum Rust, BTCPay, Bitcoin Core, LND, Phoenix Wallet). He also co-founded Paralelna Polis in Bratislava & coded Firefish.

Mike in Space is the creator of STAMPs: a protocol which inserts permanent data into Bitcoin blocks. STAMPs are mostly used to immortalize art on Bitcoin, but this use case is so heavily criticized by some community members that they call it an attack.

Ben Arc is one of the most prolific builders in Bitcoin. He created LNBits – a simple Lightning wallet project which seeks to be the Wordpress of Bitcoin thanks to its modularity and openness to plugins. Ben is also one of the founding fathers of Nostr. The birth of Nostr [00:01:31] Ben Arc discusses the origins of Nostr and how Fiatjaf came up with the name. He also mentions why the project has potential. Exploring music sharing on Nostr [00:03:12] Ben Arc expresses interest in building a music sharing platform on Nostr and discusses the modularity of NIPs. Expanding the use of Nostr [00:07:19] Ben Arc talks about the potential applications of Nostr beyond Twitter, including decentralized social networks and platforms like LocalBitcoins. The power of realness [00:10:14] Discussion on how people who speak authentically and outrageously, like Donald Trump, gain extra power on social media platforms. The future of bitcoin privacy [00:11:02] Promotion of Wasabi Wallet as the most advanced and widely used bitcoin privacy wallet. The development of Nostr [00:11:58] Exploration of the origins of Nostr as an extension for LN Bits and its potential for trustless commerce. [00:19:49] Ben Arc explains how the switch project can be used in different machines and devices, such as slap machines, vending machines, lights, coffee machines, and beer taps. [00:21:18] "Exploring incentivization in video streaming". Vlad mentions recent TikTok videos where users get paid in tokens for reacting to emojis, and Ben Arc talks about their own experience with incentivizing donations through physical devices on the Bitcoin Group show. [00:21:46] "Potential applications of technology in the sex industry" Ben expresses interest in developing camming solutions with Bitcoin for the sex industry, highlighting the field's potential for using Bitcoin and the need for more outreach and development in that area. The wallet account system [00:29:32] Discussion about the need for a wallet account system with its own API keys and the convenience of having all functionalities in one place. The process of building and discovering new ideas [00:30:33] Exploration of the importance of hands-on building and experimentation in generating new ideas and solving problems. Monetizing through premium extensions [00:33:32] Explanation of the potential monetization strategy for LNBits through premium extensions and the example of WordPress.com's approach. The cover and distribution of the BTCTKVR magazine [00:39:07] Vlad discusses the various covers and the distribution process of the BTCTKVR magazine, ensuring it feels special for events. Subscription service for Bitcoin Takeover [00:40:46] Ben Arc suggests the idea of a subscription service for Bitcoin Takeover, where subscribers receive the newest copy of the magazine periodically. Grassroots adoption and institutional involvement [00:42:41] Vlad talks about the potential impact of grassroots adoption on the market and the role of institutions in buying and selling Bitcoin. The development of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) [00:48:42] Discussion on how countries are developing their own CBDCs and the potential competition between them. The value of open-mindedness and ideological debates [00:49:46] The importance of keeping an open mind, engaging in self-contradiction, and the value of Bitcoin's ideology. The control and privacy aspects of CBDCs [00:50:09] Exploration of the concerns regarding the control and privacy features of CBDCs compared to the current banking system.

Full RBF is one of the most controversial topics in Bitcoin. On one side, RBF creator Peter Todd lobbies for the feature to become a standard. On the other side, Bitrefill CEO Sergej Kotliar thinks RBF is bad for business. This is the RBF debate. ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Peter Todd is the creator of RBF and the biggest advocate for making every transaction enable the feature by default. He wrote this article to explain his point of view: https://petertodd.org/2023/why-you-should-run-mempoolfullrbf Sergej Korliar is the CEO of Bitrefill and an advocate for 0-confirmation transactions, as long as the receiver is willing to take the risk. He considers that full RBF effectively destroys the 0-confirmation use case, potentially slows down Bitcoin adoption and makes users migrate towards altcoins for commerce. This episode is a debate between the two perspectives. It also marks the first time in a while when the two of them sat down to talk and this fact is reflected on how tense the interaction became towards the end. Both participants agreed to record a second part of this debate, after gathering more information to either back up their claims or debunk their adversary's statements with data. –––––––––––––––––––––––––––– The Full RBF Debate [00:01:59] Peter Todd and Sergej Kotliar present their opposing views on RBF. Understanding Full RBF [00:03:00] Sergej explains the concept of full RBF and its impact on transaction replaceability and user experience. Reliability and Usefulness of RBF [00:06:26] Peter Todd counters Sergej's arguments, discussing the reliability and usefulness of full RBF in real-world scenarios. Full RBF and multiparty transactions [00:11:27] Discussion on the trade-offs of full RBF for multiparty transactions and the impact on transactions like Wasabi's CoinJoins. Benefits and inconveniences of on-chain payments [00:14:15] Debate on the trade-offs of using zero conf and the advantages and disadvantages of on-chain payments. The use of RBF for power users [00:19:35] Discussion on the usefulness of RBF for power users, programmatic transactions, and multi-party scenarios. [00:21:16] Discussion on the frequency of using RBF (Replace-By-Fee) in transactions and assumptions about exchange users. [00:23:06] The unpredictability of the bitcoin mempool and blocks, in relation to the need to bump fees. [00:26:37] Debate on the usage of zero-conf (zero confirmation) transactions and examples of merchants accepting them. [00:30:00] Discussion on the percentage of blockchain space used by low fees and the impact on usage. [00:30:59] Importance of rough consensus and the difficulty of making changes in the Bitcoin network. [00:38:48] Discussion about the reliability of zero-conf transactions and the real-world data supporting its usage. [00:39:13] Debate on the risk involved in accepting zero-conf transactions and the potential vulnerabilities. [00:45:14] Plans for a potential continuation of the discussion on the topic of zero-conf transactions in a future episode.

Matej Zak is the new CEO of Trezor. In his first English podcast appearance as CEO, he talks about Trezor's upcoming hardware wallets, the status of Tropic Square chips, controversies concerning the Wasabi CoinJoin integration & his views on adoption. [00:01:50] Discussion about the new CEO of Trezor and the continuity of the company with the previous management. Trezor's growth and market trends [00:02:44] Discussion about the increase in sales, growth of the company, and the market trend towards self-custody with hardware wallets. Trezor's upcoming product announcement [00:07:17] Discussion about an upcoming product announcement from Trezor that will be a breakthrough for the company and the market, expected to be released in 2023. The new hardware wallet [00:11:08] Discussion about the upcoming hardware wallet, its design, accessibility, and software features. Price and features of the new wallet [00:12:59] Comparison of the new wallet's price and features with the Trezor One and Trezor Model T. Physical buttons vs touch screen [00:15:21] Debate on the advantages of physical buttons for user experience and the announcement of a future model with a touch display. The choice of Wasabi for CoinJoin [00:21:03] Discussion on why Trezor chose Wasabi as a partner for CoinJoin, highlighting the importance of usability and user liquidity. The privacy concerns with Trezor's backend servers [00:22:10] Explanation of how Trezor's use of backend servers can affect privacy and the misconception surrounding it. The rejection of certain transactions by Wasabi [00:24:25] Explanation of Wasabi's rejection of certain transactions for CoinJoin and the misunderstanding surrounding it as collaboration with the government. The recent launch and community support [00:31:35] Discussion about the recent launch and community support for open source solutions. Durability testing of Trezor devices [00:32:13] Conversation about durability testing for Trezor devices, including a durability test involving Slush, a Trezor One and his BMW's wheel. Future plans for Trezor and self-custody [00:38:21] Discussion about the company's plans for the next ten years, including the goal of educating users on self-custody and reaching millions of users globally. More shitcoins [00:42:08] Discussion about Trezor's support for altcoins and how people always seem to end up in Bitcoin. Outsourcing coin integration and Bitcoin-only version [00:42:55] Conversation about how Trezor outsources the development of integrating new coins and the availability of a Bitcoin-only version. Efforts in implementing new coins and outsourcing [00:44:21] Discussion about the effort spent on implementing new coins, outsourcing development, and upcoming announcements of new networks.

MercuryWallet mastermind Nicholas Gregory & former Paxful CEO Ray Youssef have joined forces to create Civ Kit: a peer to peer marketplace framework which is built on top of Nostr & enables anyone to do commerce with great scalability & advanced relaying.

While trying to improve on some of the Lightning Network's shortcomings, Burak Keceli created Ark: a Bitcoin second layer which offers privacy, speed & a user experience which resembles that of the main chain. In this episode, he explains how Ark works.

Hero of Bitcoin aims to create and launch a Bitcoin-themed video game for the Gameboy. In this episode, the game's creator talks about the development process and all the hidden Easter eggs which relate to Bitcoin culture. Support the game on Geyser!

Michele Morucci (also known as MetaMick) is the CEO and co-founder of Geyser: a fundraising platform which empowers creators in the Bitcoin space to crowdfund their projects via Lightning Network. In this episode, Michele tells us everything about Geyser.

Aljaz Ceru is the CEO and co-founder of Bolt.Observer: a service which helps Lightning network node runners with management and monitoring tools. In this episode, he offers some advice on what mistakes you should avoid when managing your home node.

Opening Lightning Network channels with WBTC and DeFi money from Ethereum? Creating a DAO to pay participants who make the Lightning Network more reliable? This sounds blasphemous, but it's what the Stroom Network aims to do. Slava & Nick explain it all.

Ever heard of the Polish-made BiFury USB ASIC miners? That's only one of Filip Pawczyński's OG contributions to Bitcoin mining. In this episode, Filip reminisces about the early days of Bitcoin mining and comments on the industrialization of mining.

During Bitcoin FilmFest in Warsaw, I had the pleasure to interview three members of LOLA (Ladies of Liberty Alliance) Poland. In this episode, you can hear Justyna Piątek-Pawłowska, Agnieszka Plonka & Tania Rak talk about freedom, Ayn Rand & Bitcoin.

Matyáš Kuchař is the co-founder and main organizer of BTC Prague: Europe's largest Bitcoin conference, which promises to bring together more than 10.000 attendees and some of the finest speakers in the space. Here's why you should buy a ticket to Prague.

Hampus Sjöberg is the creator and lead developer of Blixt – a versatile & feature-packed Lightning Network wallet which he builds according to his own perfectionist expectations. In this interview, we talk about Blixt & unpopular opinions about Bitcoin.

Martijn Wismeijer became an international media sensation in 2014 when he implanted an NFC chip in his hand to access his Bitcoin wallet with greater ease. Today, he is in charge of GeneralBytes' marketing department, pushing for wider Bitcoin adoption.

Emzy is a long-time bitcoiner who contributes to the space by running independent nodes and servers. He is also one of the first people to run their own mempool.space client. In this episode, he shares some of his experiences with working in Bitcoin.

Nick Hansen is the CEO of Luxor Mining – a pool which, at the time of this recording, was the 6th biggest in the world. In this interview, we talk about Bitcoin mining, Luxor's business model & Nick's strange fascination with ordinal inscriptions.

Tomek Kolodziejczuk and Pierre Corbin are the masterminds behind Bitcoin FilmFest – an artistic event which celebrates Bitcoin's cinematic culture in the heart of Europe (Warsaw, Poland, March 24-26 2023). In this episode, they explain why you should join

MercuryWallet is one of the most remarkable achievements in Bitcoin privacy. By virtue of Statechains, users can swap UTXOs without leaving any traces. More recently, CommerceBlock wants to bring Mercury to mobile devices with some cool Lightning features

ShopInBit is the online store that lets you use your bitcoin to buy laptops, phones, watches & thousands of other items. In this episode, Lando Rothbardian & Travin Keith explain how they made it all happen & why you should use your BTC for shopping.

Casey Rodarmor took the Bitcoin world by storm when he launched Ordinals: a modern and simplified approach to Colored Coins which lets anyone upload files to the Bitcoin blockchain to create digital artifacts (inscriptions). But what are the pros & cons?

Since launching in October 2018, Wasabi wallet positioned itself at the avant-garde of Bitcoin privacy. Almost 5 years later, Nopara73 reflects on the ideas and research that led to the creation of Wasabi, and also makes some predictions for the future.

Fedimint provides an easy way for people to create Chaumian mints using bitcoin – basically community banks which offer speed, scalability & privacy at the expense of trusting the bankers. In this episode, Eric Sirion and Obi Nwosu explain how it works.

After Wasabi 2.0 launched, what's next for Bitcoin privacy? Max Hillebrand, CEO of ZK Snacks (the company which develops Wasabi) tells us why the Wabisabi protocol is such a big deal, what kind of challenges lie ahead & what is on the development roadmap.

Mike Jarmuz is a Bitcoin VC, best known as a co-founder of Lightning Ventures. However, in this interview we don't talk about any of that. Instead, we express our mutual love for Bob Dylan's music and share experiences from various concerts we attended.

Bumbee is the Bitcoin version of content monetization platforms such as Patreon & OnlyFans. It offers lower fees, a better form of money that can't be censored & the promise of fairness. In this episode, Chris (OB_HODL) explains how Bumbee helps creators.

Viktor Vecsei is the COO of IVPN – a VPN service which takes privacy very seriously and also accepts payments via on-chain bitcoin and Lightning. In this episode, Viktor talks about what VPN services do, explains their limitations & compares their offers

Max Keidun is best known as a contributor to HodlHodl and co-organizer of the Baltic Honeybadger conference. But this year in Riga, he announced a new project: DebiFi, a bitcoin lending aggregator which helps take loans & borrow money without custodians.

Max Hampshire is responsible for developer relations at Nym – an internet privacy project which makes use of Chaumian mixnets in order to break the link between data packets. It's one of the most promising projects & definitely one worth learning about.

Kristaps Kaupe (Lord Kristaps) is an open source contributor who works on a handful of Bitcoin projects. Most notably, he is a maintainer of JoinMarket & a contributor to Bitcoin Core, RaspiBolt & SatSale. In this episode, he talks about privacy & more.

On the last day of Baltic Honeybadger 2022, BIP 300 creator and advocate Paul Sztorc joins the show to provide a summary of his two panels on Drivechaina and unpopular Bitcoin opinions. When he doesn't explain technical concepts, Paul makes funny jokes.

This interview is the result of 2 separate recordings which took place in August and October 2022: in the first one, Christian Rootzoll talks about what's new with RaspiBlitz. In the second part, Matthew Croughan joins to talk about integrating NixOS.

Lisa Neigut (@niftynei) works on Lightning network projects at Blockstream. In this interview, she provides some practical advice on running your own Core Lightning node on a home device. Also, she explains what happened to LND lately.

Dr. Maxim Orlovsky is the lead developer of RGB: a layer 3 protocol that's built on top of the Lightning Network which aims to make it easy for anyone to issue tokens, stablecoins & NFTs in a scalable client side-validated way.

During Hackers Congress 2022, after longer than a year of exchanging messages and planning, I finally managed to interview Ben de Waal about his left anarchist political views. Spontaneously, Alexandra Moxin & Karo Zagorus also decided to join.

Labitconf is Bitcoin's own Lollapalooza – this is how Rodolfo Andragnes describes the event that he created. In November 2022, Labitconf celebrates its 10th annual anniversary, with a football world cup-themed return to the home country of Argentina.

Rahim Taghizadegan is an actual Austrian economist who teaches economics in Austria and founded his own university to preserve the tradition – Scholarium. In this episode, he explains the nuances of Bitcoin's cult-like culture & how he sees the future.

This year's Adopting Bitcoin conference from El Salvador will happen thanks to the efforts of Kemal and Noor. In this episode, they explain the progress that the country has made in the year that has passed since it adopted Bitcoin as legal tender.

Amir Taaki joined Bitcoin in late 2010, and is responsible for creating the BIP system, the first alternative Bitcoin client (libbitcoin), and the first privacy-focused wallet (DarkWallet). In this interview, he reflects on the early days of Bitcoin.

Electrum is the most feature-rich Bitcoin wallet, and creator Thomas Voegtlin has been adding improvements to it since 2011. Right now, Thomas is making the Lightning Network accessible with Trampoline nodes that don't need to be online 24/7.

After having had enough from the authoritarians, longtime bitcoiner Bruce Fenton has decided to take matters into his own hands and run for the US Senate to represent New Hampshire. In this interview, he explains why & gives us an insight of his platform. Special thanks to Vaultoro and Wasabi wallet for sponsoring the show! Time stamps: 00:46 – Intro 02:04 – Bruce Fenton selling 85 BTC to finance his campaign 03:31 – Why Bruce Fenton is different 05:35 – Is Bruce Fenton a constitutionalist? 07:38 – Freedom is what made America great 10:26 – Did Bruce Fenton get any support from mainstream politicians? 12:56 – Have bitcoiners given up on politics? 16:00 – Divisive issues raise more money, at the expense of nuance 20:00 – A national divorce? 23:30 – “Bowling Alone” by Robert D. Putnam and division 33:00 – Fighting for freedom vs taking freedom for granted 36:26 – The Founding Fathers of the USA were very young 40:00 – Safety vs freedom 41:40 – On China and authoritarianism 46:02 – Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness 48:10 – Is Bitcoin a big part of Bruce Fenton’s campaign? 51:45 – Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Benjamin Franklin would be bitcoiners if they lived today. Hamilton would have done ICOs and DeFi 55:30 – Carrying a copy of the Constitution during the campaign 56:40 – Both Bitcoin and the US Constitution are hard to change 01:03:30 – How the US Government is attacking Bitcoin 01:08:14 – Should Bitcoin become legal tender in the USA? 01:14:50 – What can Bruce Fenton do for the people of New Hampshire? 01:16:00 – Breaking the record for the longest filibuster 01:18:10 – Bringing people together 01:20:50 – What can a state do to nullify federal overreach? 01:21:55 – How does Bruce Fenton rank in the polls? 01:27:20 – Donating $17.76 01:29:30 – Is everything really good for Bitcoin? 01:33:00 – Freedom is like a muscle, you gotta train it

Recently, Peter Todd published a mathematical paper to explain how tail emission could work om Bitcoin. In this episode, he gets to explain why he thinks inflation is necessary to secure the Bitcoin network as the mining rewards get halved every 4 years.

As the CEO of Bitrefill, Sergej Kotliar has been offering a steady, predictable, reliable & seemingly-boring service for 7 years. However, Bitrefill is anything but boring: these days, the gift card company is trying to save the bankers & make NBA shoes!

Pavol Rusnak (Stick) is one of the most prolific contributors in the Bitcoin space. Since creating the Trezor hardware wallet with his friend Slush, he worked tirelessly to create open source standards that make using BTC more secure and private.

Joseph Tetek (SatsJoseph) is a well-known Bitcoin educator, author, and content producer from the Czech Republic. In this episode, he talks about his work at Satoshi Labs, some upcoming Trezor projects, and what it's like to promote Bitcoin in Czech.

Sodomak is a cryptoanarchist who formerly worked as the CTO of Paralelni Polis in Prague. In this interview, he talks about the philosophical values of Paralelni Polis, the cafe's origins, and how it provides Bitcoin education to every customer.

CommerceBlock CEO Nicholas Gregory is one of the engineering masterminds behind Mercury Wallet: a Bitcoin wallet which makes use of Statechains and provides privacy via CoinSwaps. In this interview, Nicholas talks about making bitcoin work as money.

Initially, extension blocks & Mimble Wimble were Bitcoin proposals for scalability & privacy. But now that Litecoin married the two with MWEB via soft fork, Charlie Lee explains if & how we can have this solution type of solution added into Bitcoin.

In the heart of Budapest, there is this shrine of Bitcoin culture where you can taste the poison of strong liquors, boost your energy level with a copy, and pay your bill with BTC. In this episode, I interview Bitcoin Bar co-owner Adam.

Lipa is a Swiss-made open source project which aims to provide an easy way for small businesses (restaurants, bars, clubs) to accept bitcoin payments via Lightning network. In this episode, co-founders Adrian, Patrick, and Bastian explain how Lipa works.

Bleskomat is an open source project which aims to create a universally accessible Bitcoin ATM that swaps your dirty fiat currency for BTC via Lightning network. In this episode, co-founders Karliatto and Chill explain how their ATM works.

This season premiere is all about promoting the ethos of free open source software. Pavlenex and Kykks from BTCPay Server, accompanied by Mempool.space mastermind Soft Simon talk about their work and advice newcomers about the challenges of Bitcoin FOSS.

Rare Scrilla (formerly known as JScrilla) is a hip hop artist, music producer, and on of the most celebrated Bitcoin artists around. In this episode, Scrilla expresses his love for frogs, Bitcoin's Counterparty protocol, and the DJPEPE cards.

Joe Looney and Shawn Leary were there when the first Rare Pepe card was created. And as true scientists, they instantly started contributing with both art and infrastructure. In this episode, they talk about frog memes and the history of Counterparty.

Giacomo Zucco did to Bitcoin maximalism what Elvis Presley has done to rock n roll: he didn't invent it, but he popularized it to the masses. And when Counterparty and Omni are making a comeback while Stacks rises, it is his duty to rate their scamminess.

Harry Halpin is a privacy lover and freedom advocate who embarked on an ambitious journey to create a better Tor, which is actually decentralized and provides incentives. The name of his project is Nym & it makes use of mixnets to prevent traffic analysis. In this episode, Harry Halpin talks about the meaning and scope of privacy in the digital age, why the Nym project accepted a financial grant from the European Commission, why Nym provides better data anonymization than Tor, and how several cypherpunk ideas get rediscovered years later in order to fix contemporary problems.

When I first met Yuval in November 2021, he was working to improve the Wabisabi protocol, trying to make Bitcoin transactions truly private. In this episode, we talks about both the innovations and challenges that we must face to attain fungibility.

Nik Oraevskiy is the CEO & co-founder of Bitcoin Reserve – a European non-custodial Bitcoin exchange which looks into adding all sorts of features & integrations (including Lightning, Liquid, and auto DCA). In this episode, we talk about keeping it real.

Lucas Ontivero is Nopara's first employee at Wasabi wallet. As a matter of fact, when he joined it wasn't even called Wasabi: the first name was Hidden Wallet. In this episode, Lucas talks about Bitcoin privacy research & the Wabisabi CoinJoin protocol.

Juan Galt is a Bitcoin journalist and consultant who decided to go full-time Rare Pepe scientist. He sees historical value in Bitcoin (Counterparty) NFTs & also considers that we're witnessing the dawn of a new asset class. But is it really this bullish? This episode is sponsored by Vaultoro, Wasabi wallet, and Bitcoin Reserve. If you'd like to diversity your bitcoin portfolio into gold, make your BTC transactions more private, and also buy more bitcoin in Europe, then you'll definitely enjoy the musical ads!

Chris DeRose joins the Bitcoin Takeover podcast for the 3rd time to talk about how he has been right all along about Counterparty, why he's never selling his Rare Pepes, and to which extent web 3 is a scam. Watch out for the rare DEROSEHEAD NFT cards!

If you spend more than 10 minutes in the Bitcoin Counterparty NFT realm, you're gonna hear about Spells of Genesis, Rare Pepes & SaruTobi. Well, this episode's guests are the OGs who created them & envisioned using blockchain assets as video game items. Christian Moss, Shaban Shaame, and Koji Higashi (enumerated in order of appearance) talk about creating some of the first NFT series on Counterparty and pioneering video game assets before Ubisoft, Square Enix and Konami made it cool. This episode is sponsored by Vaultoro (the place where you buy gold with bitcoin), Wasabi wallet (the best desktop privacy wallet) and Bitcoin Reserve (the exchange were Europeans buy their BTC). Time stamps: 00:00 – Introductions 11:33 – Spells of Genesis cards have always had monetary value 12:44 – How Christian lost the Nakamoto Card to Shaban 18:18 – Rare Pepes used to be considered expensive at $10 20:20 – The rising Bitcoin fees have stalled Counterparty NFT expansion 22:15 – Why Spells of Genesis stayed on Bitcoin 24:55 – Why Counterparty is different from ICO protocols and chains, but still got attacked and received hate from the Bitcoin community 28:30 – Pieter Wuille’s criticism of Counterparty 31:00 – Counterparty used to have the best wallets and user interfaces 34:08 – What changed about Counterparty when Ethereum’s ERC20 tokens launched? 36:26 – Spells of Genesis and Rare Pepes depict moments from Bitcoin history 41:20 – The Bitcoin blockchain only stores tokens and their related data, not jpegs or gifs 44:00 – NFTs vs ICOs (nobody ever collected ICOs) 49:30 – Counterparty assets need to be high-value 52:56 – Not your node, not your NFTs 59:30 – Will NFT valuation crash? 01:07:15 – Views on FakeRares 01:15:28 – What makes an NFT valuable? 01:18:30 – Computer-generated NFTs aren’t very interesting 01:20:30 – Jordan Peterson, frogs, and Pepes 01:21:20 – Why Rare Pepes failed on Ethereum 01:22:20 – NFTs used to be called just “tokens” 01:23:30 – Rare Pepes reflect a lot of our pop culture 01:25:15 – Satoshi’s Games minting NFTs on Liquid 01:28:00 – RGB on Lightning? 01:36:30 – Are you really spamming the Bitcoin network if you’re paying your fair fee? 01:42:10 – Royalties for your NFTs 01:48:46 – NFTs in video games 01:53:20 – Video gamers hate NFTs because they boil the oceans

Theo Goodman is a man of many talents: he writes, records, and produces music videos about Bitcoin, he draws frog memes, and also gives talks at conferences. Theo was one of the earliest Rare Pepe scientists. In this episode, he shares his wisdom. Season 10 of the Bitcoin Takeover Podcast is sponsored by Vaultoro (the gold and bitcoin exchange), Wasabi wallet (the best Bitcoin privacy wallet you can use), and Bitcoin Reserve (European BTC exchange by bitcoiners and for bitcoiners). Check them out if you want to support the show. 8:38 – Theo’s Bitcoin art-themed shows on World Crypto Network 9:50 – Bitcoin memes against Reddit censorship 25:44 – The Counterparty burn address and XCP genesis 31:30 – Does Counterparty help Bitcoin become more of a free speech computer network? 37:33 – NFTs getting traded just like shitcoins 41:38 – Why Ethereum sucks 46:33 – Bitcoin will outlive us, and therefore Counterparty is the vinyl of NFTs 54:30 – Counterparty NFT transactions pay for Bitcoin’s security budget 01:08:50 – How Counterparty can get censored 01:11:50 – Mercury wallet is really cool 01:14:32 – RGB on Lightning is a more scalable Counterparty 01:15:40 – The jpeg or gif from the NFT doesn’t get uploaded to the blockchain 01:17:31 – The token is the art 01:23:10 – Why didn’t Counterparty NFTs take off at first? 01:29:24 – Why is Pepe so important for the community? 01:31:14 – ICOs vs NFTs 01:34:09 – Where should Counterparty go from here? 01:36:20 – Theo’s “Economics” and “I am Satoshi” hit songs 01:36:58 – Music NFTs? 01:38:00 – Naming assets on Counterparty 01:39:50 – If the answer is 42, then what is the question? 01:40:14 – Theo’s dance moves and rareness 01:41:00 – Rare Pepes vs Fake Rares 01:49:25 – NFT NYC and Rare Pepes 01:50:30 – Are Rare Pepes alt-right? 01:52:00 – Dan Dark Pill feeling salty about not having access to the Pepes he created

Bitcoin and DeFi certainly don't sound like they belong in the same sentence. But cypherpunk Eric Martindale, accompanied by community builder and Silicon Valley BTC meetup organizer George Burke, are creating Portal: DeFi on Bitcoin layer 3. This episode is sponsored by Vaultoro, Wasabi Wallet, and Bitcoin Reserve. They're some of the finest, most useful, and most principled companies in the space, so you better check them out. Time stamps: 01:39 – The Silicon Valley Bitcoin meet-up (which George Burke currently organizes) 02:58 – DeFi on Bitcoin’s layer 2 06:05 – What does Bitcoin maximalism actually mean? 10:22 – Why are layers necessary in Bitcoin development and why was Portal built on Lightning as opposed to Liquid? 14:20 – What is a layer 3 and why is Portal one? 21:32 – How Portal is using layer 3 and the ability to post orders 40:25 – Bitcoin privacy really matters 50:25 – Being lazy with privacy also makes governments lazy with their CBDCs 1:04:16 – Why it’s hard to find Bitcoin Core developers 01:07:30 – Eric Martindale’s “Privacy First” principle 01:11:30 – Why buying a pre-built node reintroduces trust in a trust-minimized system 1:15:45 – RISC V boards for Bitcoin nodes 1:20:53 – Eric Martindale is like a younger David Chaum 1:21:30 – What is the ELI5 explanation for Portal? 1:22:50 – What is Portal’s monetization model?

Satoshi Sound is a co-producer of the Bitcoin & Friends animated show. Having joined the Bitcoin space in 2013, he is also involved in mining and has a background in gold. In this episode, we talk about all of these topics and give away some spoilers. This episode is sponsored by Vaultoro (gold and bitcoin exchange) and Wasabi (privacy-centered BTC wallet). Time stamps: 03:30 – Toxicity and principle 05:30 – The voluntary spirit, purity of intentions and consistency of advocacy among bitcoiners 08:14 – Satoshi Sound’s Bitcoin journey from 2014 and until today 11:30 – The Bitcoin-only story arc of the Bitcoin and Friends show 12:30 – The Bitcoin OG mentality and low-time preference 16:15 – Working for Peter Schiff and why Bitcoin is superior to gold 18:55 – Pricing bitcoin in gold? 25:00 – Can Bitcoin ETFs suppress the price? 31:57 – Gold custody vs BTC custody 33:00 – Turning Shamir shares into BIP39 backups for extra security 35:44 – Multisig in the era of travel restrictions and lockdowns 38:01 – The drawbacks of Shamir Secret Sharing and custodial multisigs 41:30 – Shamir on top of multisig keys? 45:10 – Bitcoin and Friends collaborating with Cobra? 48:04 – Lessons learned from producing the first season of Bitcoin and Friends 53:35 – Did Satoshi Sound do any voices in the Bitcoin and Friends show? 55:29 – Extra characters being written into the show 59:10 – Who is the villain in Bitcoin and Friends? 01:02:20 – Slight spoiler about the Mitalik character 01:05:20 – Mining BTC with a Butterfly Labs ASIC and GPUs back in 2013 01:07:15 – Mining Bitcoin with wasted natural gas (Permian Mining) 01:11:50 – How can you follow Satoshi Sound?

When he began researching Bitcoin, David St-Onge decided to purchase and read some of the most popular books on the topic. In this interview, he rates the one that he liked the most and makes recommendations about where you should begin your journey. This episode is sponsored by Vaultoro (the exchange where you only trade with honest money) and Wasabi (the bitcoin wallet that's optimized to protect your network-level and transaction privacy). Time stamps: 0:00 Intro 1:41 Presentation 3:48 David’s book reading frenzy 7:49 Mastering Blockchain 11:58 Tokenomics 14:29 Stray Dog visits 15:08 Tokenomics (continued) 16:00 Mastering Bitcoin 19:16 David’s motivations to write his book 20:51 Programming Bitcoin 22:43 The Bitcoin Standard 23:40 What has government done to our money ? 25:15 Layered Money 26:20 The Bitcoin Standard (continued) 28:55 What has government done to our money ? (continued) 30:52 The Bitcoin Money Book 33:58 How David met his publisher 36:08 The little Bitcoin Book 42:41 21 Lessons 45:45 Inventing Bitcoin 50:05 The book of Satoshi 55:10 Why Buy Bitcoin 57:36 The Price of Tomorrow 1:04:02 Books about Hyperinflation in Zimbabwe 1:08:46 The Lessons Of History 1:11:11 Sovereignty through mathematics 1:16:22 The short list 1:16:52 Tout sur Bitcoin (The short list) 1:18:17 Inventing Bitcoin (The short list) 1:18:46 Layered Money (The short list) 1:20:32 The Price of Tomorrow (The short list) 1:20:55 Future reading 1:21:45 The zero interest trap 1:24:30 Thoughts on Bitcoin courses 1:28:45 When did David decide to write his book ? 1:32:55 Where you can buy David’s book? 1:34:35 Bitcoin Twitter 1:35:44 How would David rate Vlad's BTCTKVR magazine ? 1:39:23 Layered Money (rating) 1:39:59 Conclusion 1:47:17 The Hidden book (The Blocksize War)

For most of his life, Max Hilleband has been an avid reader of Austrian Economics. So when the El Salvador bitcoin adoption as legal tender was announced, he couldn't help but express his perspective on the praxeological & human action implications. This episode is sponsored by Vaultoro and Wasabi wallet. Time stamps: 1:40 – Intro 3:20 – The Austrian School of Economics 04:05 – Why the left-right dichotomy doesn’t make much sense 05:03 – What’s the deal with praxeology and what does it have to do with El Salvador? 10:18 – When is a country ready to adopt bitcoin? 15:00 – Denominating products and services in bitcoin 19:40 – Every country is pretty bad, but some are worse than others 20:05 – Democracy vs monarchy 36:02 – All previous forms of government have failed 40:00 – Choice, opting-out, and opportunity cost 44:50 – First reactions to El Salvador’s decision to adopt bitcoin as legal tender 51:30 – The short-term opportunity costs of adopting bitcoin in El Salvador 57:00 – The unforeseen consequences of adopting bitcoin as legal tender in El Salvador 01:00:00 – Bitcoin revolution vs French Revolution vs American Revolution vs the Bolshevik Revolution 01:05:00 – After bitcoin wins, what’s next? 01:08:30 – Opting out by voting with your feet 01:14:20 – How can we consider and individual’s choices to be truly free in a world where everyone is trying to influence us? 01:23:30 – Keeping Bitcoin censorship-resistant with home mining 01:28:00 – Recommendations for computer operating systems (Qubes, Tails, Debian, Nix Bitcoin) 01:31:20 – NixOS vs Nix Bitcoin 02:32:20 – Reflexive behavior in relation to praxeology 01:39:00 – Schumpeter’s story 01:42:00 – Shitcoiners returning to bitcoin 01:44:00 – We never really had an altcoin (alternative to bitcoin) 01:45:25 – Sidechains & BIP 300 (Drivechains)

In this episode, Kenichi Kurimoto & Hitomi Moriyama talk about the useful Bitcoin Lightning tools that Nayuta builds, and also comment on contemporary issues which range from monetary inflation in Japan to Bitcoin nodes and layer 3 applications.

While most Bitcoin podcast interviews feature people who agree on almost every topic, this discussion with Knut Svanholm feels much more like a debate where we have opposing views. We talk about El Salvador, the state of sovereignty & why BTC is bullish. Sponsored by Vaultoro & Wasabi Wallet. Time stamps: 4:20 – Why did Knut Svanholm stick around the Bitcoin space? 7:20 – Bitcoin conferences are the new rockstar tours 9:55 – Opinions on “The Sovereign Individual” by James Dale Davidson and Lord William Rees-Mogg 15:47 – The free will paradox 17:30 – Bitcoin as financial atheism 19:00 – Faith in verification 20:15 – Linux and open source 23:30 – Bitcoin privacy 26:08 – Financial incentives vs ideology 28:33 – Karen culture and Chainalysis 35:00 – Stockholm syndrome and the brilliance of George Orwell 38:13 – The El Salvador situation 58:50 – Elon Musk, Michael Saylor, and corporations getting involved in Bitcoin 01:01:50 – Mining from home and altruism 01:12:23 – Miners, Taproot, and SegWit activation 01:19:55 – Bitcoin’s J-shaped price action and S-shaped user adoption 01:23:54 – Why we’re still in the early days of Bitcoin 01:28:00 – The issue of fake bitcoins that can create inflation on Revolut, PayPal & eToro 01:31:45 – Day trading is like the poker boom 01:32:20 – People quitting their jobs because of the bitcoin bull run 01:34:30 – HODLing vs trading 01:36:00 – Bitcoin and the environment 01:43:00 – Bitcoin memes and reality 01:47:20 – Inflation is coming 01:48:45 – Yearly lows are more interesting than all-time highs 01:49:30 – Lightning is readier than ever 01:55:50 – Bits vs sats 01:57:00 – The mempool is empty again in 2021 01:59:54 – Peter Schiff is always the bottom indicator 02:03:57 – If you’re a Karen and want to speak to the manager of Bitcoin, where do you go? 02:06:30 – Knut’s next book 02:08:58 – Is Bitcoin libertarian? 02:13:00 – Starship Troopers, Robocop and other films that Hodlonaut also loves 02:14:50 – Roko’s basilisk and the Honey Badger Basilisk 02:17:09 – Why we need more Bitcoin podcasts 02:21:05 – Bitcoin, Christianity and atheism 02:23:00 – Why podcasts are better than television and radio 02:25:00 – How and why limits can be helpful and productive 02:27:05 – Interviewing Chris DeRose and keeping up with him 02:32:00 – Debating Roger Ver? 02:34:20 – Shitcoinery at the Bitcoin 2021 conference 02:36:00 – Shitcoins today are basically Bitcoin sidechains 02:37:50 – Stablecoins are oxymorons, altcoins are no real alternatives 02:39:00 – There’s a lot of method acting in Ethereum 02:41:00 – Zooko is most likely still a hardcore bitcoiner 02:43:00 – Vitalik, the Magic Flute and opera 02:47:50 – Fame 02:49:53 – People want to be loved, just like Charles Foster Kane 02:52:00 – Why kids and inheritance matter 02:56:00 – The flaws of education in Sweden 03:08:05 – Social democracy in Sweden

Thanks to the marvels of digital audio editing, I present you the uncompromising version of my interview with Chris DeRose. The sound quality is better & I've also restored some previously lost parts of our dialogue. Bitcoin Uncensored fans will love it! Originally sponsored by Vaultoro and the donations of Evan Rose and Vake. In the meantime, Wasabi wallet has joined the party. Time stamps: 01:43 – Hello party people! 04:45 – Trigger warning and Derose’s laws 05:30 – How is Chris Derose’s doing these days and how does his shitcoin basket perform? 09:12 – Using bitcoin as a unit of account 12:00 – We’re living in weird economic times 13:27 – Hope vs clarity 13:40 – What can you do with BTC? 14:46 – Will Chris DeRose make a comeback tour? Does he still have his Pepe cash? 15:22 – Ladyboys, S&P 500 20:18 – What happened to Murad? 21:00 – Is Chris DeRose coming back to Twitter? 26:23 – What does Chris DeRose predict is going to happen to Bitcoin in the next 6 months? 29:50 – Why is Bitcoin not decentralized enough? 32:20 – Decentralization in Chris DeRose’s definition 37:06 – How can Bitcoin replace the dollar without blending in first? 41:12 – Does the average bitcoiner want Bitcoin to be more decentralized? 44:34 – The US-centric comprehension of Bitcoin and rationalizing decentralization 52:58 – ASICs and decentralization 57:26 – Hard forking Bitcoin 1:01:47 – The one true Bitcoin 1:15:10 – User verification and who controls Bitcoin 1:19:30 – Decentralization is people doing stuff 1:22:00 – The Bitcoin totem 1:26:10 – Chris DeRose overanalyzing 1:31:41 – Hot takes vs critical thinking 1:41:30 – Lord of the Flies and the weird nature of the left-right political divide 1:46:50 – Why Chris DeRose still loves America 1:50:15 – What is on Chris DeRose’s reading list these days? 1:52:44 – History and the complimentary ideological extremes 1:57:34 – The internet will demoralize all the religions, ideologies and languages 2:00:36 – The religion of science 2:05:15 – Why did Chris DeRose get into Bitcoin? 2:08:25 – Did Chris DeRose get involved in e-gold, ecash, liberty dollar, or any other precursor of Bitcoin? 2:12:21 – Silk Road and demoralisation 2:16:20 – Mainstream financial institutions are demoralizing themselves 2:17:05 – Is Bitcoin still libertarian? 2:21:30 – Michael Saylor becoming way too influential 2:26:47 – Bitcoin will eat the world 2:33:00 – People who program silicon vs people who program carbon 2:35:07 – Developers vs marketers 2:41:20 – Objective money, gold and bitcoin 2:48:35 – Chris DeRose on the Lightning Network 2:51:41 – Offering confidence in Bitcoin to podcast listeners 2:57:40 – Arguing is a favor that we offer to society 2:59:30 – Contention in American society 3:02:50 – Connotation vs denotation 3:06:00 – The pollution of language 3:08:50 – Newsspeak in 1984 and Huxley’s Brave New World 3:10:53 – The cat didn’t read the book on being a cat, but somehow humans do it 3:11:59 – We don’t go to school for education, but for obedience 3:15:11 – 50-page libertarians and 1000-page libertarians 3:16:30 – Bitcoin meetups used to be Socratic seminars, now they’re sermons 3:17:55 – Chris DeRose’s Florida meet-up 3:20:07 – Bitcoin might just be like Star Wars: commercially successful but spiritually bankrupt 3:21:58 – Michael Saylor is the textbook spook 3:24:30 – You get paid to leave in this space 3:27:02 – Asserting geographic independence 3:30:26 – The contention is with the medium, not the content 3:31:28 – S9 E2 teaser

Ben Arc likes to call himself an anarchist. Yet unlike most bitcoiners, he doesn't subscribe to the anarcho-capitalist school of thought. Instead, he belongs to the original Proudhon left-wing tradition and Hegelian dialectics. This episode is sponsored by Vaultoro and Wasabi Wallet. More info, time stamps, and other details: https://bitcoin-takeover.com/s9-e6-ben-arc-on-anarchisms-left-wing-origins/

Start9 Labs CEO Matt Hill explains why it's important to manage your entire digital sovereignty with simple yet powerful open source software. Embassy OS, a Raspberry Pi operating system, offers a Bitcoin & Lightning node, plus other useful applications. This episode is sponsored by Vaultoro and Wasabi wallet. More details and interview time stamps: https://bitcoin-takeover.com/s4-e5-matt-hill-on-the-philosophy-of-sovereignty/

In his attempt to create prediction markets to fix our democracies, Paul Sztorc has decided to also spend some time trying to expand Bitcoin's sidechain layers with his BIP 300 Drivechain proposal. In this episode, he explains how & why he wants to do it. This episode is sponsored by Vaultoro & Wasabi wallet. More details and timestamps: https://bitcoin-takeover.com/s9-e4-paul-sztorc-on-the-philosophy-of-drivechains-and-prediction-markets/

What is anarcho-capitalism? Is it really an evil corporate environment? Who builds the roads and how will people resolve disputes in the absence of a central government? Joshua Scigala imagines a world that's based on peace & free markets. This episode is sponsored by Vaultoro and Wasabi wallet. More info and time stamps: https://bitcoin-takeover.com/s9-e3-joshua-scigala-on-the-philosophy-of-anarcho-capitalism-voluntaryism/

Vlad Zamfir is known as an independent thinker who is often perceived as dangerously blasphemous by his critics. In this episode, we talk about the philosophy of absurdism, CBDCs, privacy, immutability, code is law, and Nick Szabo's legacy. This episode is sponsored by Vaultoro and Wasabi wallet. More info and time stamps: https://bitcoin-takeover.com/s9-e2-vlad-zamfir-on-the-philosophy-of-absurdism-szabos-law/

KeyStone is the new Cobo Vault – except that lots of improvements have been brought and there are further software upgrades in the making. So in this episode, KeyStone CEO Lixin Liu tells us about his new hardware wallet & why it's better than Cobo. This episode is sponsored by Vaultoro and Wasabi wallet. More details and time stamps: https://bitcoin-takeover.com/s8-e12-lixin-liu-on-the-keystone-hardware-wallet/

Today, the once-outspoken Bitcoin Uncensored co-host Chris DeRose is unusually reclusive. But in spite of his apparent demoralization, he is as sharp and candid as ever – and any match with him is still a no holds barred. Hope you'll enjoy this long one! Sponsored by Vaultoro, Vake & Evan Rose. More info: https://bitcoin-takeover.com/s9-e1-chris-derose-on-the-philosophy-of-demoralization/

Max Hillebrand is a Bitcoin and privacy advocate whose contributions to Wasabi Wallet have helped integrate hardware wallet functionality (among other cool features). In this episode, he talks about hardware wallets and how you can use them with a privacy-friendly wallet to boost your financial sovereignty. Furthermore, Max Hillebrand drops some hints about the future of Wasabi.

Stepan Snigirev is the creator of Specter Wallet, one of the best and most-user friendly solutions to set up multisigs on Bitcoin. He is also the mastermind behind Specter DIY, a hardware wallet that you can build yourself from general-purpose parts. This episode is sponsored by Vaultoro & Wasabi Wallet. More details & time stamps: https://bitcoin-takeover.com/s8-e11-stepan-snigirev-on-specter-diy-free-open-source-software/

Featuring Bitcoin-related songs by Czino, Richard La, DJ J Scrilla, Phil Gibson, Crypto Contagion, Renegade Investor, Vlad Costea, Zhou Tonged, Lord Snooty of Bitcoin, Cryptoraptor, Pleb Music, and Guywithafork. Sponsored by Vaultoro & BitBox02! Full playlist: https://bitcoin-takeover.com/bitcoin-takeover-radio-3-music-only-edition-for-the-weekend/

The Seedsigner is a unique DIY hardware wallet that anyone can build from a Raspberry Pi Zero. And in this episode, Mr. Seedsigner explains to us how the device works and why bitcoiners should build one to validate their own transactions.

Ben Arc describes himself as an open source hobbyist. Yet in spite of his humble introduction, he built the open-source Bowser hardware wallet and is also one of the lead developers of LNBits – a useful Lightning Network tool.

Slush talks about the next Trezor hardware wallet: a device that's going to benefit from the Tropic Square open source secure element chip, but also add a few extra features. Also, the Satoshi Labs CEO presents some important security tips. This episode is sponsored by Vaultoro and Wasabi Wallet. Here are the time stamps: 01:42 – Intro 03:24 – How did Slush come up with the idea of Tropic Square? 09:31 – What were Tropic Square’s biggest challenges? 12:54 – What’s the stage of development for the Tropic Square chips? 14:50 – Addressing chip audibility criticism from Lawrence Nahum and Zach Herbert: how can users verify the open sourceness of the chips? 18:10 – Coldcard changing licenses because of Foundation Devices: how does the situation compare to what Trezor did when KeepKey came around? 21:00 – Should users add complexity to their backup with a passphrase? 32:49 – Can the issue of physical security get solved? 34:00 – What does Slush think about the Cobo Vault? 39:55 – Can the Trezor do PSBT? 40:27 – USB vs PSBT via SD card 42:10 – What does Slush think about the Foundation Devices Passport? 43:58 – What does Slush think about the Blockstream Jade? 48:35 – Which features will the next Trezor hardware have? 49:58 – The Trezor Model T screen 52:30 – Trezor’s user interface improvements with Trezor Suite 57:51 – Trezor Suite wallet verification to prevent phishing attacks 1:00:55 – New features in Trezor Suite 1:03:20 – Are there any plans to add SLIP 0039 (Shamir Secret Sharing) to the Trezor One? 1:04:45 – The issue with typing your passphrase on your computer keyboard when using the Trezor One 1:07:41 – Connecting your Trezor to a full node 1:09:43 – Multisig vs Shamir Secret Sharing 1:19:18 – How does Trezor secure its marketing database and how can people order hardware wallets in a safer way? 1:23:17 – Why should people still buy hardware wallets instead of doing setups on wiped laptops? 1:21:19 – Removing fake applications and other phishing attempts 1:30:34 – What is next for Trezor and Satoshi Labs?

Since launching in February 2020, the second generation Cobo Vault has grown considerably on Western markets and has added lots of interesting features. In this episode, Lixin Liu talks about the pros and cons of this air-gapped approach to managing coins

Lazy Ninja is a security expert whose claim to fame in the Bitcoin space is hacking the Coldcard and the BitBox02 hardware wallets. In this episode, we talk about the latest trends in BTC security, including multisig, new devices (Foundation Devices Passport, Cobo Vault) & CoinJoins. ––––––––––––––––––––––––––– This episode is sponsored by Vaultoro and Wasabi Wallet. Whenever you think that Bitcoin has reached the top, consider preserving your purchasing power through the world's oldest and most stable form of money: gold. And for this, you can join Vaultoro (not financial advice): https://vaultoro.com/bitcointakeover/?ref=6Tf1KvA And if you want to boost your Bitcoin privacy (network-level, transactional, sending, and receiving), then download Wasabi Wallet on your computer. It's the ultimate user-friendly tool which makes privacy an accessible tool for everyone. Available on Windows, MacOS and Linux.

Zach Herbert is the CEO of Foundation Devices – a company that is about to ship the first batch of the Passport, a new user-friendly and Bitcoin-centric hardware wallet. In this interview, Zack talks about the elements that make the Passport unique. This episode is sponsored by Vaultoro and Wasabi Wallet. ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Time stamps: 00:00 – Intro 03:40 – What was the initial reception like for the Foundation Devices Passport? 05:25 – The global chip shortage and hardware wallets 07:22 – Why launch another hardware wallet? 11:20 – Does the Foundation Devices Passport work with third party wallets like Wasabi, Electrum, and Blue Wallet? 14:00 – Why does the Passport sign transactions with an SD card or QR codes that you scan with the embedded camera? 16:20 – What kind of secure element chip does the Foundation Devices Passport use? 18:29 – From 1 to 10, how open source and transparent is the Passport hardware wallet? 20:40 – Tropic Square’s TASSIC chip and bunnie’s Precursor project 25:25 – Foundation Devices Passport vs Trezor 28:24 – Foundation Devices Passport vs Ledger 32:00 – Foundation Devices Passport vs Coldcard 39:17 – Is Foundation Devices Passport giving away bounties to ethical hackers? 41:47 – Passport’s security audit being made by the wallet.fail hackers 47:15 – Foundation Devices Passport vs BitBox02 52:07 – Why use hardware wallets when you can do cheaper DIY projects? 56:03 – Should we load up on hardware wallets before supply chain attacks become a lot more common? 57:00 – Are multisig setups a silver bullet for security? What about Shamir Secret Sharing? 1:00:30 – The surprise gift that comes with the first batch of Passports 1:01:30 – How can you get more privacy when ordering the Passport from Foundation Devices? 1:07:16 – What should we expect next from Foundation Devices? (node, phone & more)

In January 2021, Blockstream took the Bitcoin world by surprise by announcing the Jade hardware wallet – a powerful and inexpensive device. In this episode, Blockstream Chief Architect Lawrence Nahum explains how Jade works and what it aims to accomplish. This episode is sponsored by Vaultoro and Blockstream. ––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Time stamps: 00:00 – Intro 03:38 – Why did Blockstream join the hardware market? 05:46 – Blockstream’s version of the anti-klepto, anti-Exfil 06:46 – How Jade can fix the multisig user experience 08:45 – Wait, isn’t Jade a green stone? 09:37 – Bitcoin wallets and colors 10:10 – How does Jade work with Wasabi and Electrum? 11:39 – Do Jade’s QR code scanning and bluetooth connectivity make it a mobile-specific hardware wallet? 12:40 – Making Jade work as a stand-alone device 13:46 – Air-gapping and false promises by other hardware wallet manufacturers 15:54 – Jade vs Trezor, Ledger, and BitBox02 22:55 – Does Blockstream have a bounty policy for responsible security disclosures for the Jade hardware wallet? 24:44 – Building your own Jade from the open sourced specifications 25:59 – What was the reception like for the Jade? Have any experts tried to hack into the Jade? 28:37 – Tropic Square and open source security chips for hardware wallets 31:10 – Buying a hardware wallet vs building your own from general-purpose parts 35:32 – Does PSBT make your coins more secure? Will Blockstream’s Jade add PSBT? 37:08 – How can you protect your privacy when ordering a hardware wallet? 43:38 – Multisig vs Shamir Secret Sharing 49:27 – When do you know that you need a multisig? 52:39 – What’s next for Blockstream? 53:45 – What’s the next Jade update going to include? 57:09 – Lawrence Nahum’s ideas to integrate Jade with Lightning and JoinMarket 1:00:30 – Shitcoins lying about their contributions to computer science and how newbies fall for it 1:03:00 – Promoting shitcoins is bad 1:04:21 – Bitcoin sidechains integrating interesting ideas from shitcoins (Drivechain, RSK) 1:06:58 – The tradeoffs involved when using sidechains 1:08:10 – When will Jade production meet its demand? 1:08:55 – What is the service life of the wallet? 1:11:46 – The Jade roadmap, revisited 1:15:06 – Can you use Jade for multisig in a quorum? 1:16:20 – Wen Reckless Review? 1:19:20 – Lawrence Nahum also created ABCore 1:20:59 – Why is Lawrence’s wallet called GreenAddress? 1:25:00 – Lawrence Nahum consulted HTC for the Exodus 1s full node phone 1:27:53 – How Lawrence Nahum came up with ABCore after receiving an Android TV accessory 1:30:13 – #BringBackRecklessReview #BuyUdiAMicrophone

In this episode, ShapeShift CEO Erik Voorhees talks about the KeepKey hardware wallet, the power of open source software, and the importance of self-custody. As a Bitcoin veteran, Voorhees also reminiscences about the most popular wallets from the 2010s. This episode is sponsored by Vaultoro and Wasabi Wallet. ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Time stamps: 00:00 – 03:05 – Introduction 03:06 – When did Erik Voorhees use the first hardware wallet? 06:49 – KeepKey’s design 07:38 – What were the most popular wallets that OGs were using in the early 2010s? 10:28 – Start9 Labs 13:53 – Mt. Gox, exchange hacks, and the importance of self-custody 17:05 – Do exchanges really insure your bitcoins? 23:18 – Michael Saylor, Elon Musk, Stock to Flow & Lending Services Like BlockFi & Celsius 28:07 – The financialization of Bitcoin (ETFs, derivatives, synthetic 32:29 – Why verification matters 35:20 – Mt. Gox YubiKeys influenced the creation of hardware wallets? 36:07 – Using your hardware wallet for U2F/2FA 36:30 – Resetting a KeepKey 37:30 – Dealing with fake KeepKey apps 41:55 – Why Shapeshift acquired the KeepKey 43:07 – What does Erik Voorhees think about the Trezor One and the Trezor Model T? 45:06 – What hardware wallets should do 46:20 – Ledger and why open source matters 47:20 – Is open source socialist? 49:12 – Did Erik Voorhees try the Coldcard, BitBox02 or Jade? 49:30 – Ballet Real vs Pro 50:40 – Mike Caldwell’s extra security steps with the Casascius coins 52:38 – Multisig setups 54:30 – Shamir Secret Sharing 56:40 – Why open source helps software outlive the company that created it 57:30 – What kind of Bitcoin custody advice would Erik Voorhees give his younger self? 1:00:25 – Why should anyone buy a KeepKey hardware wallet instead of something else? 1:01:30 – Does KeepKey work with Electrum and Wasabi?

Charles Guillemet is the CTO of Ledger, the market leader in the field of Bitcoin hardware wallets. In this episode we talk about Ledger's philosophy for security, innovation, and how the Ledger Nano X compares to Trezor, BitBox, Coldcard and others. This episode is sponsored by Vaultoro and Wasabi Wallet. –––––––––––––––––––––––––– Time stamps: 0:00 – 3:01 – Intro 03:02 – The journey of the Ledger Nano X 05:00 – Bluetooth and mobile connectivity for Ledger Live 05:55 – What makes Ledger devices unique and what’s the difference between Nano S and Nano X? 09:29 – Microcontroller differences between Nano S and Nano X 11:15 – How expensive is it to break the security of a Nano S or Nano X when the hacker gains physical access? 15:13 – Ledger Live’s support for connecting a full Bitcoin node 20:06 – How Coin Control (UTXO management) works 21:34 – Tor routing on Ledger Live? 22:35 – Ledger Live on desktop vs Ledger Live on mobile 24:03 – Full node on smartphones 25:40 – Ledger Nano X vs Trezor Model T 27:45 – Ledger Nano X vs BitBox02 29:02 – Ledger Nano X vs Coldcard 31:15 – Ledger Nano X vs Cobo, Passport, Jade, SafePal & others 34:09 – What is Ledger’s DonJon? 36:09 – Charles Guillemet’s contributions to finding vulnerabilities in Trezor 37:57 – PSBT, Airgap, QR codes & Shamir 41:54 – What are the security advancements that get Charles Guillemet most excited? (Schnorr, Zero-knowledge proofs, cryptography) 45:26 – Why should we still use hardware wallets, in spite of critics? 47:06 – How can Ledger users protect their devices? 48:55 – Never type the seed phrase on your keyboard 50:23 – Is multisig the silver bullet for security? What about Shamir Secret Sharing? 55:16 – Exclusive announcement about adding native multisigs to Ledger 56:38 – What’s next for Ledger? 57:58 – Should Ledger users set up passphrases? 59:00 – Closing statements

Benma is a software developer and researcher who works on the BitBox02 hardware wallet. In this episode, he talks about the qualities that make the BitBox02 unique, and how the device compares to other competing hardware wallets (Trezor, Ledger, Coldcard). Benma also mentions the current state of multisig standards, why users should use hardware wallets, and which security advancements get him most excited. In the end, he talks about ShiftCrypto's upcoming plans and projects. This episode is sponsored by Vaultoro and Wasabi Wallet. --------------------------------- Time Stamps: 0:00 – 04:00: Intro 04:00 – Why Benma wouldn't call himself a hardware wallet hacker, despite disclosing a vulnerability in the Coldcard Mk3. 04:30 – The BitBox02's journey since getting launched in late 2019 07:30 – Typing on the BitBox02 09:30 – What makes the BitBox02 unique? 12:15 – Connecting your Bitcoin full node to the BitBoxApp and other power user features 14:10 – The anti-klepto feature on the BitBox02 and how it involved Schnorr signatures, and the review of Blockstream's Jonas Nick and Andrew Poelstra 22:36 – BitBox02's encrypted communication with the computer and mobile phone 24:00 – Connecting your BitBox02 to Android devices 27:53 – BitBoxApp on ChromeOS and Chromebooks? 29:00 – BitBox02 vs Trezor Model T 33:12 – BitBox02 vs Ledger Nano S/X 36:33 – BitBox02 vs Coldcard 40:40 – PSBT and security 41:55 – When does an airgapped cold storage help? 48:40 – BitBox02 vs Cobo Vault and other new hardware wallets 50:55 – Multisig 56:00 – Shamir Secret Sharing 1:00:00 – Replacing hardware wallets with improvized setups 1:05:30 – Why hardware wallet alternatives are not really feasible 1:06:30 – Hardware wallets and privacy 1:13:00 – What is next for BitBox02 and ShiftCrypto?

Atlas (@ancapchildren) first rose to Bitcoin prominence after American Hodl started a campaign to turn him into a wholecoiner. Almost a year later, Atlas is still holding onto that bitcoin he received and keeps his strong conviction.

Giacomo Zucco and Mir are the Bitcoin power couple in its purest and best-intentioned form. You'd think that they wouldn't have much to say outside of Bitcoin, but as soon as you ask them questions they will keep on talking for 2 hours straight! Topics include politics, music, and films. This episode is sponsored by Vaultoro & Trezor. If you would like to help the show, there are two ways you can do it: Sign up for Vaultoro and start trading with hard money (Bitcoin, gold & silver)*: https://vaultoro.com/bitcointakeover Buy a Trezor hardware wallet to improve your security with the power of open source: https://shop.trezor.io/?offer_id=10&aff_id=4735&tiny_url=1 *Attention: the information presented is not financial advice. Only start trading if you've made prior plans about it, you've done market research and/or you have consulted a financial advisor. All trading involves risks and you are responsible for your own decisions.

Hodlonaut & Katia are one of Bitcoin's most popular and beloved couples. But when they don't run the Citadel21 operations, they watch 1980s films and enjoy electronic music. In this episode, they talk about their preferences & express their cat-like views. --------------------------------- This episode is sponsored by Vaultoro & Trezor. If you would like to help the show, there are two ways you can do it: Sign up for Vaultoro and start trading with hard money (Bitcoin, gold & silver)*: https://vaultoro.com/bitcointakeover Buy a Trezor hardware wallet to improve your security with the power of open source: https://shop.trezor.io/?offer_id=10&aff_id=4735&tiny_url=1 *Attention: the information presented is not financial advice. Only start trading if you've made prior plans about it, you've done market research and/or you have consulted a financial advisor. All trading involves risks and you are responsible for your own decisions.

Koleya Karringten is best known in the Bitcoin space for her executive director role in the Canadian Blockchain Consortium. But her main job involves designing combustion heating systems for aviation and construction. In this episode, we talk about Koleya's background, her volunteering work, and the role of freedom and science pandemic-induced lockdowns. --------------------------------- This episode is sponsored by Vaultoro & Trezor. If you would like to help the show, there are two ways you can do it: Sign up for Vaultoro and start trading with hard money (Bitcoin, gold & silver)*: https://vaultoro.com/bitcointakeover Buy a Trezor hardware wallet to improve your security with the power of open source: https://shop.trezor.io/?offer_id=10&aff_id=4735&tiny_url=1 *Attention: the information presented is not financial advice. Only start trading if you've made prior plans about it, you've done market research and/or you have consulted a financial advisor. All trading involves risks and you are responsible for your own decisions.

Most people know Charlie Lee as the creator of Litecoin or one of the major investors in Bitcoin companies. But in this episode, Charlie talks about his love for video games and Star Wars. We go way back to the days of the NES & 1990s PC gaming! --------------------------------- This episode is sponsored by Vaultoro & Trezor. If you would like to help the show, there are two ways you can do it: Sign up for Vaultoro and start trading with hard money (Bitcoin, gold & silver)*: https://vaultoro.com/bitcointakeover Buy a Trezor hardware wallet to improve your security with the power of open source: https://shop.trezor.io/?offer_id=10&aff_id=4735&tiny_url=1 *Attention: the information presented is not financial advice. Only start trading if you've made prior plans about it, you've done market research and/or you have consulted a financial advisor. All trading involves risks and you are responsible for your own decisions.

When he doesn't do Bitcoin stuff, John Carvalho enjoys writing and listening to music, as well as playing video games. In this episode, the Lightning business developer that nobody asks for tells more about how he almost became a punk rock star. -------------------------------- This episode is sponsored by Vaultoro & Trezor. If you would like to help the show, there are two ways you can do it: Sign up for Vaultoro and start trading with hard money (Bitcoin, gold & silver)*: https://vaultoro.com/bitcointakeover Buy a Trezor hardware wallet to improve your security with the power of open source: https://shop.trezor.io/?offer_id=10&aff_id=4735&tiny_url=1 *Attention: the information presented is not financial advice. Only start trading if you've made prior plans about it, you've done market research and/or you have consulted a financial advisor. All trading involves risks and you are responsible for your own decisions.

Car Golzalez is best known for doing Bitcoin-related research during his Thriller Podcast. But in his spare time, he enjoys listening to Bob Dylan albums and has some very interesting opinions on some of the more obscure and underrated albums. We also talk about what it's like to be an ethical podcaster in a space where most people seem to shamelessly enjoy every financial benefit while maintaining a shady reputation. ----------------------------------- This episode is sponsored by Vaultoro & Trezor. If you would like to help the show, there are two ways you can do it: Sign up for Vaultoro and start trading with hard money (Bitcoin, gold & silver)*: https://vaultoro.com/bitcointakeover Buy a Trezor hardware wallet to improve your security with the power of open source: https://shop.trezor.io/?offer_id=10&aff_id=4735&tiny_url=1 *Attention: the information presented is not financial advice. Only start trading if you've made prior plans about it, you've done market research and/or you have consulted a financial advisor. All trading involves risks and you are responsible for your own decisions.

SpaceBull is best known as the creative director of Bull Bitcoin. But in his spare time, he enjoys pushing his creative boundaries and taking inspiration from the voluptuous beauty of women. Also, SpaceBull is a big fan of the Motorola RAZR. --------------------------------- This episode is sponsored by Vaultoro & Trezor. If you would like to help the show, there are two ways you can do it: Sign up for Vaultoro and start trading with hard money (Bitcoin, gold & silver)*: https://vaultoro.com/bitcointakeover Buy a Trezor hardware wallet to improve your security with the power of open source: https://shop.trezor.io/?offer_id=10&aff_id=4735&tiny_url=1 *Attention: the information presented is not financial advice. Only start trading if you've made prior plans about it, you've done market research and/or you have consulted a financial advisor. All trading involves risks and you are responsible for your own decisions.

When asked to described himself in a phrase, Unhashed Podcast co-host Mario Gibney said "Super Mario likes eating his mushroom". In this episode, we talk about psychedelics, video games, and the addiction factor involved in both.

In an adversarial environment in which bitcoin and gold compete for the best store of value, Joshua Scigala sees potential in both and supports them equally. In this episode, Joshua and I diverge a little bit from the usual monetary topics to get philosophical. We talk about ethics, cancel culture, and all the human problems that will not get fixed by hard money and require us to better ourselves first. ---------------------------------- This episode is sponsored by Vaultoro & Trezor. If you would like to help the show, there are two ways you can do it: Sign up for Vaultoro and start trading with hard money (Bitcoin, gold & silver)*: https://vaultoro.com/bitcointakeover Buy a Trezor hardware wallet to improve your security with the power of open source: https://shop.trezor.io/?offer_id=10&aff_id=4735&tiny_url=1 *Attention: the information presented is not financial advice. Only start trading if you've made prior plans about it, you've done market research and/or you have consulted a financial advisor. All trading involves risks and you are responsible for your own decisions.

Colin Aulds is best known as the CEO of Billfodl and Privacy Pros. But in his spare time, he enjoys playing video games and studying the history of the USSR. In this episode, we get to learn a little bit about these obscure yet intricate sides of Colin. ---------------------------------- This episode is sponsored by Vaultoro & Trezor. If you would like to help the show, there are two ways you can do it: Sign up for Vaultoro and start trading with hard money (Bitcoin, gold & silver)*: https://vaultoro.com/bitcointakeover Buy a Trezor hardware wallet to improve your security with the power of open source: https://shop.trezor.io/?offer_id=10&aff_id=4735&tiny_url=1 *Attention: the information presented is not financial advice. Only start trading if you've made prior plans about it, you've done market research and/or you have consulted a financial advisor. All trading involves risks and you are responsible for your own decisions.

Stephen Chow stands out in the Bitcoin space as the individual who enjoys supporting living artists. And he does it by financing them so they can do the masterpieces they envision. In this episode, we talk about the state of arts, patronage & video games. ---------------------------------- This episode is sponsored by Vaultoro & Trezor. If you would like to help the show, there are two ways you can do it: Sign up for Vaultoro and start trading with hard money (Bitcoin, gold & silver)*: https://vaultoro.com/bitcointakeover Buy a Trezor hardware wallet to improve your security with the power of open source: https://shop.trezor.io/?offer_id=10&aff_id=4735&tiny_url=1 *Attention: the information presented is not financial advice. Only start trading if you've made prior plans about it, you've done market research and/or you have consulted a financial advisor. All trading involves risks and you are responsible for your own decisions.

Joshua Scigala has been searching for Bitcoin long before it was actually launched. And as a gold enthusiast, he has always seen the two scarce commodities as complimentary assets. In this episode, the Vaultoro CEO talks about his Bitcoin journey.

In his second appearance in the Bitcoin Takeover Podcast, John Carvalho explains why the Lightning Network is ready and what we can do to help it reach its full potential. We don't just talk about technology, we try to change the culture and explain why.

In this Paralelni Polis 2020 interview, Jonas Nick from Blockstream, Peter Todd and Alekos Filini talk about Schnorr Signatures, Taproot, NixOS, the Lightning Network, Multisigs, CoinJoins, and everything great happening in Bitcoin development.

Pavol Luptak is an ethical hacker and cryptoanarchist who has been involved in the Bitcoin space since 2010. In this episode, he talks about the upcoming Paralelni Polis conference and tells stories about his experience with organizing HCPP.

Jarret Dyrbye (known on Twitter as JD2983) first rose to Bitcoin prominence as the developer of forkdrop.io. But after the Lightning Network launched, he started working on interesting Lapps such as Sparkshot & Socket Money.

Max Hillebrand has really left his mark in the Bitcoin space by actively financing initiatives to increase the currency's privacy and by his direct contributions to Wasabi Wallet. In this interview, he talks about his work & aspirations.

Stadicus is a hero of individual sovereignty: he became known in the Bitcoin space for his RaspiBolt guides to run a full Bitcoin and Lightning node, and he also works for ShiftCrypto trying to push the boundaries of privacy and security.

Justin Wales is a pioneer in the field of Bitcoin law: not only that he works with Carlton Fields clients who are deal with Bitcoin, but he also advocates for the Bitcoin network's status as a free speech medium.

Luis Ploennig is the growth director of Indacoin – a company which focuses on spreading Bitcoin adoption in places whose fiat currencies are more volatile than BTC. We talk about the different standards & how BTC is perceived by those who need it the most

Crypto Coder Bob is best known in the Bitcoin community for helping others become first class citizens by running full nodes, but also his recent Dave Portnoy-related memes which culminated with the creation of a creative bingo card.

Konikko Trader first rose to Bitcoin prominence after writing an article titled "Guide to Soviet Past" in the magazine Citadel21. In this episode he talks about life in Russia, democracy, capitalism & trading Bitcoin.

For years, Arthur van Pelt has been gathering evidence to prove that Craig Wright's claims are backed by forgeries and false statements. In this episode, the Dutchman explains how and why he does it.

Matthew Haywood has been a software developer for 20 years, and has worked for Blockstream since 2017. As product manager of Liquid Securities, he understand the dynamics and tradeoffs of Blockstream's sidechain project and explains them accordingly. ----------------------------------- Time stamps: 1:00 – Introduction 2:20 – How we met in person for the first time 3:10 – Product manager of securities on Liquid? 5:00 – Working with Nopara73 on an early version of Wasabi Wallet 6:30 – Matthew Haywood’s experience as a software developer and involvement in Bitcoin as a writer for Brave New Coin 12:05 – What is the Liquid Network and what does it do? 16:30 – The use cases of Liquid and Lightning 18:30 – What should get stored on the blockchain and what should be moved to a second layer or sidechain? 28:50 – Bitcoin as free speech money with privacy features 33:20 – Is there a scaling war going on? 37:55 – Liquid on the Lightning Network 47:40 – Atomic swaps between BTC and L-BTC 50:30 – Welsh people are nice 51:30 – Everyone is mean on Twitter, but nicer in person 56:20 – Automagically as a word 58:20 – Bitcoin Takeover was initially meant to be called Bitcoin in Politics (BIP) 59:00 – Zack Voell and Francis Pouliot have also graduated in political science 1:00:00 – Bitcoin and politics 1:06:00 – The fact that we’re divided perpetuates the fiat system 1:10:00 – Career politicians wouldn’t survive in the private sector 1:15:10 – Hyperbitcoinization and the importance on sovereignty 1:18:40 – Why bother with sovereignty when you can use Coinbase? 1:25:00 – The security of early Bitcoin adopters 1:27:30 – Is Blockstream evil? 1:33:00 – How to follow Matthew Haywood on Twitter

Libbitcoin developer Eric Voskuil talks about the breakthroughs he made as a coder and his affinity and understanding of Austrian economics. Furthermore, he provides information about his Cryptoeconomics book & answers questions from Twitter followers. ================================================ Time stamps: 00:47 – Intro 02:00 – For how long has Eric Voskuil worked on Libbitcoin? 04:00 – Why are Bitcoin repository ports created? 6:30 – Breakthroughs made by Libbitcoin 12:10 – Eric Voskuil's more advanced activity in Bitcoin 15:43 – Performance optimization 20:51 – Satoshi Nakamoto wasn't a professional programmer 25:15 – Is Eric Voskuil a computer scientist or an economist? 28:10 – Austrian economics 29:30 – Credit and economic production 33:25 – Misean economics as an axiomatic system 38:54 – S2F (Stock to Flow) is not Austrian 42:20 – Price cannot be proven economically 44:01 – The value proposition of Bitcoin as money 44:27 – Why store of value is subjective 45:53 – Lunar fallacy 48:50 – Eric Voskuil's Cryptoeconomics 50:52 – The Cryptoeconomics books 52:43 – Musing over censorship resistance for a year 54:15 – Economic rational explanation for censorship resistance 56:40 – James Chang's contributions to the Cryptoeconomics book 59:20 – Cryptoeconomics vs The Bitcoin Standard 1:02:00 – Combining Libbitcoin and Cryptoeconomics 1:06:54 – Bitcoin took years to understand 1:09:20 – Bitcoin security 1:14:16 – Why Trezor offers the best security 1:22:37 – CB750 break pedal 1:24:20 – Is hyperbitcoinization possible? 1:26:38 – Cryptoeconomics on Amazon? 1:27:46 – Improving Bitcoin Privacy 1:29:34 – Take-aways from Vietnam conference 1:33:17 – What happens to Bitcoin if the internet gets regionalized? 1:34:49 – Why the Blockstream Satellite doesn't solve problems 1:38:56 – The US government as a threat model 1:40:52 – Resilience vs privacy 1:42:37 – Outlawing Bitcoin development threatens devs? 1:51:44 – Bitcoin is not a gambling device 1:53:40 – Libbitcoin institute donations

May 7th 2020 has marked the global release of Torsten Hoffmann's second documentary about Bitcoin, titled "Cryptopia: Bitcoin, Blockchains, and the Future of the Internet". In this interview, he talks about some highlights from the film. ================================================ Time stamps: 00:47 – Introduction 2:17 – Ticket prices and how the interviewees have changed since the last documentary (Bitcoin: The End of Money As We Know It) 4:18 – Approaching Roger Ver and remaining objective in presenting the scaling debate 6:55 – The explanatory animations in the documentary and reaching newbies 9:00 – The documentary's 3 chapters 11:26 – Why maximalists should pay more attention to the film before dismissing it 12:00 – Roger Ver going from Bitcoin Jesus to Bitcoin Judas 14:30 – Travelling around the world to film interviews 14:55 – Xapo's huge underground military storage facility 17:40 – Working on the film for 6 years 18:30 – Why watching the documentary in the cinema is a different experience 19:15 – Why Bitcoin documentaries made by community members are better 20:31 – The hero's journey 21:00 – The chapter about the history of the internet 22:08 – Mining innovation and using the cheapest kind of energy 23:54 – Why Bitcoin helps make energy more efficient 24:34 – Managing to distinguish between Bitcoin and scams in a way that doesn't create confusion 25:17 – Interviewing the inventor of ERC20 and confronting him with the scams he enabled 28:00 – Another ICO mania? 29:25 – The Ponzi psychology and human greed 30:20 – Is "Cryptopia" a conversation starter for nocoiners? 32:20 – What would Torsten change to his documentary? 33:45 – What would Vlad add to the documentary? 34:15 – Starting the project from the Bitcoin "Civil War" and removing parts to make it all less confusing 35:15 – Scaling Bitcoin 36:49 – Bitmain and SegWit 37:28 – The Andreas Antonopoulos quote that didn't make the final cut 38:25 – Should altcoins exist? 39:09 – Why maximalism is fascinating to Torsten Hoffmann 40:26 – Why Ethereum sucks 42:40 – Why BS V sucks 43:39 – A certain character who lives in London, files patents, and claims to have invented Bitcoin. Why does he belong in this film? 46:08 – Gigabyte blocks are a myth 47:53 – Interviewing Calvin? 49:21 – How was the feedback for "Cryptopia"? 51:15 – A newbie would have sucked at producing a documentary like this 52:39 – Why do projects need blockchains? 54:41 – DHL has been tracking items for years without blockchains 56:08 – Closing notes

Wasabi Wallet creator and lead developer explains how P2EP (Pay to End Point) can make blockchain analysis obsolete, but also expresses his views on Bitcoin security and why you probably shouldn't use Samourai Wallet. Episode Time Stamps: 00:00 – Introduction 02:06 – What are CoinJoins and how are today’s mixing services different from the tumblers of the old days? 03:55 – What is P2EP (Pay to End Point)? 5:30 – What is the origins of P2EP? 08:20 – PayJoin and how it originates from BustaPay 09:20 – Samourai’s Cahoots or Stoveaway transactions, and why they’re PayJoins but not PayToEndPoints 11:02 – Why P2EP has more potential than PayJoins 12:00 – Cool negotiations that can be done between parties when sending Pay to End Point (P2EP) transactions 13:50 – Why P2EP helps a lot of bitcoiners’ privacy, but not everyone’s 14:15 – CoinJoins vs P2EP in terms of efficiency to reach privacy 15:00 – Why P2EP doesn’t directly improve your privacy, but tricks blockchain analysis 16:30 – CoinJoins are identifiable 17:45 – Is Wasabi Wallet censorship resistant? 19:42 – The 3 issues of building electronic money, according to cypherpunk literature 22:10 – Bitcoin privacy vs fungibility 23:05 – Wasabi’s new mixing technology 25:40 – Which desktop and mobile wallet does Nopara recommend to a newbie? 27:40 – Discussion on Blockstream Green 28:31 – Wasabi vs JoinMarket vs Samourai 29:48 – Don’t use Samourai 33:30 – Why Wasabi requires more BTC to enter CoinJoins than Samourai 36:30 – What is planned for the Wasabi Wallet UX? 36:50 – Wasabi hired a cryptographer named Istvan Seres who is as knowledgeable as Greg Maxwell 38:10 – What is next for Nopara? 40:50 – Wasabi getting involved in Pay to End Point with BTCPay Server 41:50 – Can Liquid improve CoinJoins? 43:55 – Will Bitcoin privacy happen in side chains, or should the base layer get fixed? 45:30 – Wasabi’s hardware wallet integration 47:58 – Was Samson Mow right about CoinJoins being tainted correct? Is it justified to speak of Pay to End Point as opposed to PayJoins? 49:34 – P2EP and PayJoin need new and different names? 49:58 – Who can we trust, what should we verify? 52:30 – Bitstein’s presentation from BigBlockBoom where he referenced Schopenhauer’s “The Art of Controversy” to distinguish between rhetoric and dialectics

Alessandro Cecere is a bitcoiner from Venezuela who is very passionate about Bitcoin full nodes. As the CEO and founder of Coinspree, he is looking into the most interesting and promising ways of protecting financial sovereignty with dedicated hardware. 0:00 – Introduction 04:36 – How Alessandro Cecere got into Bitcoin full nodes, Bitcoin Core 05:17 – Coinspree, A Bitcoin only business 5:30 – Alessandro's beginnings with Bitcoin full nodes on a Raspberry Pi and CASA HODL 06:30 – Not running a node equals not having a truly decentralized experience with Bitcoin 07:40 – Bitcoin is a digital continent, not just a cryptocurrency 09:12 – Bitcoin more than code, it's a HUGE step for humanity 10:15 – Art & Bitcoin full nodes 11:15 – Coinspree nitcoinizing Universidad Metropolitana by donating pandoraBox® devices 13:30 – Faster digitalization of economies, faster Bitcoin adoption  15:20 – Knowing hyperinflation in the flesh makes you triple down on Bitcoin 17:00 – Alessandro's story from the 2008 financial crisis 23:10 – Technological challenges that precoiners have when trying to run a Bitcoin full node 25:10 – Reducing the learning curve for adopting Bitcoin full nodes 27:00 – Importance of Bitcoin Core and running a node 31:20 – Bitcoin's resilience and different ways of running a node 33:30 – Understanding what's behind a full node makes you love one like it's your baby 39:00 – Other Bitcoin full node companies from the industry 41:00 – pandoraBox®: a full node inside every home and office, globally 42:00 – Bitcoin full nodes can put privacy and financial freedom in people's hands 42:30 – pandoraBox®: Less cables + Art for faster acquisition coming from precoiners 44:00 – About Alessandro Cecere 46:40 – Alessandro's thesis, "A production line for Full nodes pertaining to peer-to-peer Blockchain Networks: case Bitcoin" 49:30 – Why is Coinspree working on increasing the capacity of Bitcoin full nodes production lines? 50:50 – Most nodes on the market are unappealing to non-Bitcoin users.  51:40 – mynodeBTC is an Amazing Project that helps with mass adoption! 52:00 – Coinspree's Experience with Casa 55:10 – Yes, pandoraBox® will soon be opened to people 56:13 – Setting up and owning a Bitcoin full node company and/or business is hard 56:30 – Samourai Dojo and Nodl have loyal users who are mostly coiners 1:01:10 – BitBox Base has geograhical boundaries: REMOVE THEM! It's a Bitcoin full node! 1:02:30– VC Industry and Bitcoin full node companies 1:10:00 – Even a blind person should be able to run a Bitcoin full node: POWERFUL DUDE!

In the years he has spent in the Bitcoin space, Francis Pouliot has learned a lot about personal security and how one should take care of op-sec. And even though he is a well-known figure in the space, he takes significant steps towards protecting his own privacy. Pouliot is an open advocate of Bitcoin citadels and believes in Nassim Taleb's solution for trust. In small communities, humans are pressured to care much more about their reputation and act in good faith. And that is just one part of the plan that Francis Pouliot has for his future whereabouts. Francis Pouliot also talks about P2EP (Pay to End Point), a new Bitcoin privacy solution that is expected to make blockchain analysis obsolete. And in between stories, the Canadian bitcoiner gives useful advice to new bitcoiners. Time Stamps: 01:00 – Introduction 2:24 – Bull Bitcoin is the only exchange which does CoinJoins by default 4:20 – Playing with Confidential Transactions on Liquid 5:10 – Pay to End Point (P2EP) is “Game Over” for Chainalysis 6:05 – Pieter Wuille’s brilliance 7:00 – Francis’ experience with Blockstream 8:30 – Who should you trust in the Bitcoin space? 10:04 – What is Pay to End Point (P2EP) and how is it different from a CoinJoin? 19:00 – How Bull Bitcoin helps Bitcoin 21:16 – Why Stock to Flow (S2F) is a terrible narrative 30:40 – What is the best way to secure bitcoins? 33:45 – Why multisig is overkill for most people 34:55 – Why hardware wallets are best for most users 39:15 – Keep it simple if you’re not a big target 40:15 – Personal security for bitcoiners who go to conferences and meet-ups 45:50 – Bitcoin citadels 51:20 – “Don’t trust verify”, trust, and reputation 59:00 – The pitfalls of clout chasing

Javier Bastardo is best known in the Bitcoin community as a CoinTelegraph journalist and educator for the Satoshi en Venezuela project. In this episode, he explains what it's like to be a bitcoiner in a country which issued its own shitcoin (the Petro) and even tells a story about being followed and confronted by secret police. Season 5 is all about security, so Javier talks about an often underapreciated and underestimated side of it: personal security. Being able to remain safe in a hostile environment is just as important as securing your private keys, so there are definitely lots of lessons to learn from the brave Mr. Bastardo. Time Stamps (as described by Javier himself): 2:09 – Living in a dystopia 3:18 – Struggling in a country of the 7th world vs. BTC education 5:07 – BTC versus the events in Venezuela 6:07 – The problem of being associated with the wealthy and enchufados 11:30 – Cryptocurrencies are associated with the Nomenklatura 15:00 – A story about the time when Javier got his first political militia (secret service) visit in a hotel room 19:40 – Political militia visiting a Bitcoin-only meetup 22:47 – “We need to resist” 24:30 – The Venezuelan op-sec 27:01 – Exercise the freedom of speech 30:40 – Does Javier want to leave Venezuela? 32:37 – Crisis and the Nietszchean way of living 34:00 – Who uses Bitcoin? How to store your coins as an average José de Venezuela 38:45 – Using a Samourai Wallet cold wallet with an old Samsung S4 41:58 – Venezuela needs Bitcoin, but it is difficult to use it in a secure way 44:58 – Why didn’t Javier choose to remain anonymous? 48:35 – Dollarization in Venezuela, its problems, and digital payments 51:00 – Digital and cashless Venezuelan problems 52:40 – Does Lightning fix this? 56:46 – Running a BTC and LN node 62:23 – Vlad talks in Spanish 64:50 – Bastardo is really Javier’s last name and how to donate to Satoshi en Venezuela.

As a developer, Leo Wandersleb is passionate about the way Android wallets work. In his quest to evaluate myCelium's main competitors, he has established a methodology of rating mobile wallets. That's why he created WalletScrutiny.com, a website where you can find information about how open source and transparent your mobile wallet of choice really is. If the wallet that you download from Google Play Store is not the same as the binaries you clone from the public GitHub repositories, then a red flag quickly gets waved and the wallet is not reproducible. This means that the developers are not entirely transparent about their code, do not maintain the repositories in a congruent way, and may just become malevolent if the users don't pay attention. Another interesting fact presented by Wandersleb concerns Samourai Wallet's dishonest marketing: though the developers of Samourai talk about open sourceness, their builds are not verifiable and there are great differences between the code on GitHub and the application that can be downloaded from the Play Store. Wandersleb provides interesting insights about the amount of trust that we should have in developers, explains how and when reputation matters, and ultimately helps all users to use better mobile wallets. Time Stamps Leo Wandersleb 00:46 – Introduction 02:15 – Categorization of mobile wallets on WalletScrutiny.com 3:50 – What verifiability means for wallets, and why verifiable does not mean verified 6:40 – Why verifiability matters to make sure that the wallet developers are not hacking you 9:40 – Which wallets are listed as verifiable on WalletScrutiny.com? 12:20 – Why Coinomi wallet is not open source 13:05 – Coinbase is custodial and should be avoided 15:21 – Some of the most popular mobile wallets also happen to be the worst 18:25 – Wallets that are popular, open-source, but not verifiable 19:08 – Samourai Wallet is not verifiable 22:10 – How reproducibility works at MyCelium to prevent abuses by release managers 24:20 – More arguments against Samourai 29:20 – Android’s interesting security 31:27 – Google Play vs F-Droid 33:55 – What about iOS wallets, are they verifiable? 35:20 – Blockstream Green and why it’s great 37:20 – Coinbase vs Samourai for the average user 40:30 – Why it’s better to be careful with mobile wallet updates 45:40 – In the “Don’t trust, verify” issue, what can the average user actually verify? 48:40 – Leo fails at marketing his own project 50:40 – Why builders are the best 51:10 – Companies exploiting the ignorance of newbies 53:00 – Satoshi was honest about Bitcoin’s limitations 55:30 – Why MyCelium’s iOS wallet is terrible and not recommended, but the Android version is better 59:10 – MyCelium vs Blockstream Green 1:00:30 – Collecting fees from routing Lightning Network transactions 1:02:48 – Lightning Network Routing 1:06:00 – Best mobile wallet for ease of use and open source verifiability 1:09:00 – Wallet Scrutiny [dot] com and its methodology 1:10:30 – How much does reputation matter in the Bitcoin space?

Bobby Lee talks about Ballet Wallet, his return to the real Bitcoin, meeting Bruce Willis, debating Nouriel Roubini, and onboarding nocoiners with a skewmorphic object that they can understand. 00:50 – Introduction 2:00 – How Ballet was created 3:16 – Ballet REAL vs PRO 4:55 – BIP 38 in Ballet PRO 7:30 – How Charlie Lee gifted Bobby a Casascius physical coin 9:27 – Skewmorphisms for nocoiners (a physical card is easy to understand) 11:20 – How does the Ballet app work and how does it improve on the Casascius and BTC Mint model? 15:41 – Ballet is not for experienced bitcoiners, but nocoiners who had no previous exposure with BTC and need to learn how it works 19:37 – Ballet PRO as a gift where the giver is the trusted third party 21:00 – The Bruce Willis story (and how his daughters received BTC) 23:40 – How did Bruce Willis react? 24:40 – What Adam Back, Trace Mayer, and Tone Vays thought about the Ballet wallet 28:40 – What is the maximum amount that should be stored on a Ballet Wallet? After which threshold should users look into more sophisticated storage solutions? 30:53 – Can Ballet help incentivize more people to run Bitcoin nodes? 34:30 – Which competitors does Ballet have? 36:55 – Bitcoin onboarding and full nodes 38:48 – Does Ballet compete with mobile wallets? 41:31 – Does the Ballet come in a 3-pack? 42:40 – How did Bobby Lee come up with the name “Ballet”? 45:10 – Bobby Lee’s comeback from the big blocker camp and why he returned to the real Bitcoin 46:37 – BTC actually has bigger blocks on average 47:05 – The network effect of Bitcoin 47:30 – Why the Ballet was created and Bitcoin’s use case 49:39 – Bobby Lee’s debate with Nouriel Roubini 50:40 – Nouriel Roubini is a Bitcoin maximalist 52:10 – Closing comments

On April 14th 2020, JScrilla releases "Sound Money": an eclectic juxtaposition of hip hop beats and famous voices that speak about Bitcoin. The album tells a story about the origins of Bitcoin and how the decentralized currency has evolved during the last 11 years. During this interview, JScrilla also reveals that the album's launch is going to be immortalized on the Bitcoin blockchain, and early buyers will also get unique couterparty tokens.

Phemex CEO Jack Tao talks about his journey from Morgan Stanley to Bitcoin, and explains why he enjoys the decentralized world. 3:16 – What is Phemex? 4:19 – From Morgan Stanley to Bitcoin 7:05 – What makes Bitcoin special? 9:23 – Limitations of the legacy financial system and fungibility 11:18 – Unbanking the banked 13:10 – Phemex vs BitMEX 17:00 – Separation between user accounts and the exchange 18:05 – What is simple about Phemex trading? 20:03 – Find 2.1 BTC in an art puzzle 22:00 – Information about the contest 23:21 – Phemex exchange whitepaper/yellowpaper 29:07 – How does Phemex scale? 32:06 – Why small investors should use Phemex 37:52 – Which hardware wallets does Jack use and recommend? 41:05 – Buying BTC on fiat for DCA 42:42 – How should bitcoiners think of Phemex? 43:41 – No KYC/AML on Phemex 45:49 – The data management problems involved in storing user private data 48:40 – Why BTC insurance is not perfect 50:40 – The lessons we learn from altcoin failures 51:05 – Bad Bitcoin regulations by politicians who don’t get it 54:20 – Big companies demanding for more regulations due to monopolistic greed 59:00 – Closing statements

Coinkite CEO Rodolfo Novak talks about the unique design of the Coldcard wallet and the device's uncompromising approach to security. 5:25 – Why use a hardware wallet? 6:33 – A lot of people have lost their bitcoins in the early days 7:45 – Building your own Coldcard 9:08 – Why is the Coldcard special? 12:10 – What is great about the Trezor? 12:25 – The problem with Trezor 12:43 – Why is the Ledger interesting? 13:00 – What keeps the Ledger from being great? 13:08 – The pros and cons of the KeepKey 13:30 – What is nice about the Cobo? 14:45 – On Slush’s criticism of physical security 16:14 – Whe massive spectrum of secure elements 21:15 – Can airport security hack your hardware wallet? 24:05 – Ledger article “Not All Chips Are Born Equal” and the definition of security element chips 27:10 – Is going Bitcoin-only more secure and profitable? 30:13 – Why altcoiners don’t care much about security 32:17 – Different types of bitcoiners have different kinds of security expectations 34:45 – Can hardware wallet manufacturers keep track of the devices they sell to dox you or steal your coins? 37:16 – User interface wallets that potentially track you 39:30 – Is a KeepKey that you run via Electrum as secure as a Trezor? 40:10 – Is PSBT really safe? 45:03 – Can you check your balance on a Coldcard? 46:50 – Coldcard’s opsec 49:00 – Does Coinkite store any data about customers to link the serial number with the invoice? 50:28 – Coinkite’s merchant processor is proprietary 51:17 – Rolling the dice for more randomness during seed phrase generation 53:11 – What is CK Bunker? 55:05 – Shamir Backup on Coldcard? 56:12 – What is next for the Coldcard? 58:42 – Is it safe to never upgrade your Coldcard and keep it as cold storage? 1:00:56 – Secure elements designed for Bitcoin 1:01:30 – Is the Coldcard comparable with a dedicated general-purpose computer?

Lixin Liu, creator of the Cobo Vault, talks about building a hardware wallet that serves the needs of the Chinese miners and then trying to branch out towards Western markets with a second generation of devices. Furthermore, he mentions why he thinks the design of the new Cobo Tablet is more intuitive and ergonomic than that of the Crypto Steel. Time stamps: 04:01 – The problem with brain wallets 09:23 – Paper Wallets 12:15 – The Cobo Tablet 13:55 – The Cobo Vault 16:09 – Testing according to the American military standards 16:38 – Building a product for the miners 18:36 – The background story of Cobo 21:36 – Driving a car over the Cobo vault 22:07 – Cobo Tablet vs Crypto Steel and Billfodl 26:45 – Disposing unused metal plate letters with responsibility 28:23 – Cosmos Tablet vs Cobo Tablet 28:46 – Possibly releasing a co-branded Cobo Tablet with Coldcard 30:53 – Product positioning for the Cobo Tablet vs Cobo Vault 32:57 – 2nd gen Cobo Vault 34:01 – Cobo Vault vs Cobo Vault Gen 2 36:46 – Secure element of Cobo Vault Gen 2 46:32 – The definition of a secure element 50:43 – Cobo secure element vs Coldcard secure element 52:33 – Is the Cobo Vault source code open source? 56:39 – DIY Cobo Vault? 58:35 – Cobo vs Trezor 1:00:29 – Cobo vs Coldcard 1:02:40 – Cobo vs Ledger 1:03:48 – Cobo vs BitBox02 1:05:12 – Cobo vs KeepKey 1:08:08 – Does Cobo Vault connect to your own full node? 1:10:40 – Cobo Vault privacy 1:18:33 – Closing words on 2nd Generation Cobo Vault

Slush, inventor of both the world's first mining pool and hardware wallet, talks about his work on the Trezor products and why good and transparent software is more important than physical security. Time Stamps: 4:03 – Introduction 5:00 – How did Slush come up with the idea of creating a hardware wallet? 6:30 – Meeting Satoshi Labs & Trezor Co-Founder Stick 8:50 – Why the Trezor was designed in line with the Bitcoin philosophy so you can build your own and verify its code 10:30 – Peter Todd and Lazy Ninja liked the Trezor the most 12:25 – Why should bitcoiners use a hardware wallet? 13:00 – Satoshi Labs advised Crypto Steel 14:00 – When you need to do cryptographic operations that are enabled by hardware wallets 15:39 – Why should newcomers buy Trezor hardware wallets? 21:15 – Hardware is broken and lagging behind software 27:10 – The pros of Ledger 27:40 – The issues of Ledger 28:37 – The pros and cons of KeepKey 29:25 – The Coldcard wallet design & why it’s selling snake oil 30:40 – What can’t be verified about the Coldcard? 33:23 – Is physical security a marketing trap? 35:56 – What’s to like about the BitBox? 37:30 – What are the tradeoffs of the Trezor? 38:23 – Shamir Backup 45:10 – SLIP doesn’t stand for Stephan Livera Podcast 46:48 – Software before hardware 48:01 – Why is the Trezor so expensive if it’s so basic? 48:55 – Other companies taking Trezor’s open source software to create cheaper hardware wallet clones 54:12 – Is there demand for the BTC-only firmware? 55:33 – Multisig on the Trezor 1:00:39 – Who should use a multisig setup? 1:02:30 – When should you get a hardware wallet? 1:09:10 – Local software application for Trezor 1:12:00 – Running your Trezor with Electrum or Wasabi 1:13:05 – Does Trezor collect any user data? 1:16:30 – Trezor doesn’t know who you are 1:18:23 – What are Trezor’s future plans?

<p>4:02 – Intro</p> <p> </p> <p>5:24 – Hardware Wallet Physical Security</p> <p> </p> <p>6:10 – Buying hardware wallets on eBay?</p> <p> </p> <p>7:04 – Toothbrush analogy</p> <p> </p> <p>7:26 – Supply chain attacks</p> <p> </p> <p>7:40 – Fake seed cards<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p> <p> </p> <p>8:20 – Does Peter Todd use any hardware wallets?</p> <p> </p> <p>9:10 – Hardware wallets as part of the Bitcoin lifestyle<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p> <p> </p> <p>9:30 – Dealing with Bitcoin in the early days</p> <p> </p> <p>10:40 – Peter Todd running Qubes and multiple virtual machines</p> <p> </p> <p>11:29 – Advice for newbies</p> <p> </p> <p>13:00 – The economics of hardware wallets</p> <p> </p> <p>13:50 – Markets for Bitcoin transaction data<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p> <p> </p> <p>15:00 – Are Electrum servers ran by Chainalysis?</p> <p> </p> <p>16:30 – Chainalysis and Bitcoin exchanges</p> <p> </p> <p>17:00 – Shapeshift’s KeepKey</p> <p> </p> <p>18:31 – Does Peter Todd use a Coldcard?</p> <p> </p> <p>20:22 – The issue of hardware wallet screens and checking addresses</p> <p> </p> <p>21:55 – Packaging to discourage supply chain attacks</p> <p> </p> <p>23:00 – Coldcard and PSBT</p> <p> </p> <p>25:25 – Auditing trusted setups</p> <p> </p> <p>26:10 – Which hardware wallet does Peter Todd recommend?</p> <p> </p> <p>29:15 – Is the YubiKey better than a hardware wallet?</p> <p> </p> <p>31:57 – Setting up a watch-only wallet for cold storage</p> <p> </p> <p>32:58 – Is just using Bitcoin Core secure enough?</p> <p> </p> <p>35:14 – The psychology of having a piece of hardware that makes you feel safe</p> <p> </p> <p>36:36 – Ballet Crypto and trusted printing</p> <p> </p> <p>37:45 – BitAddress dot org</p> <p> </p> <p>39:00 – Generating randomness with a dice<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p> <p> </p> <p>40:10 – Security is hard and complex</p> <p> </p> <p>41:00 – Security theatre<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p> <p> </p> <p>42:47 – Cryptography vs Applied Cryptography<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p> <p> </p> <p>44:30 – How can Trezor and Ledger steal funds from hardware wallet owners?</p> <p> </p> <p>46:41 – Liability for theft</p> <p> </p> <p>49:40 – Can hardware wallet manufacturers steal $1 from each user?</p> <p> </p> <p>51:00 – The perfect theft that hardware wallet manufacturers can coordinate</p> <p> </p> <p>52:10 – Bluetooth on hardware wallets?</p> <p> </p> <p>53:10 – RS 232<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p> <p> </p> <p>55:20 – Faraday cages</p> <p> </p> <p>57:20 – Practical advice for bitcoiners<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p> <p> </p> <p>59:00 – Tiger rocks, locks, and lock pickers<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p> <p> </p> <p>1:00:20 – Is multisig a good idea?</p> <p> </p> <p>1:01:23 – Is memorizing your private key a good idea?</p> <p> </p> <p>1:01:56 – Security from yourself</p> <p> </p> <p>1:03:30 – Physical vs digital data security</p> <p> </p> <p>1:05:20 – Does Peter Todd like weed?</p> <p> </p> <p>1:06:16 – Bitcoin and drug sales</p> <p> </p> <p>1:07:41 – Peter Todd’s prediction for Bitcoin’s success</p> <p> </p> <p>1:09:50 – One day, Bitcoin will go to 0</p> <p> </p> <p>1:10:00 – The US dollar will fail before Bitcoin</p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p> </p>

<p>05:45 – Solve the puzzle and get 2.1 BTC from show sponsor Phemex</p> <p> </p> <p>8:50 – Supply chain attacks on hardware wallets</p> <p> </p> <p>12:00 – Compromising private key generation on hardware wallets</p> <p> </p> <p>12:50 – Is running Bitcoin Core on your computer as safe as using a hardware wallet?</p> <p> </p> <p>14:46 – Coldcard’s PSBT</p> <p> </p> <p>20:28 – Lindy effects in hardware wallets (the longer they’ve been around, the more secure they are)</p> <p> </p> <p>22:50 – Hardware wallets are definitely better than bank account security</p> <p> </p> <p>23:10 – Why Bitcoin’s scarcity makes it very valuable</p> <p> </p> <p>24:43 – Losing bitcoins vs losing fiat</p> <p> </p> <p>26:48 – Hardware wallets vs cold storage</p> <p> </p> <p>29:00 – QR code cold storage</p> <p> </p> <p>29:25 – Multisig</p> <p> </p> <p>34:00 – Casa multisig inheritance system</p> <p> </p> <p>39:30 – Authentication, identity & voting</p> <p> </p> <p>43:30 – Are microchip implants a safe way to store your Bitcoin private keys?</p> <p> </p> <p>45:47 – Why Bitcoin is the best user experience</p> <p> </p> <p>47:20 – YetiCold dot com</p> <p> </p> <p>55:00 – Why does YetiCold use 3 out of 7 signatures?</p> <p> </p> <p>58:00 – JW Weatherman on using steel plates to store private keys</p> <p> </p> <p>1:02:00 – What the term “cypherpunk” really means and why the cypherpunk movement is abolitionist<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p> <p> </p> <p>1:05:40 – Why should YetiCold be trusted?</p> <p> </p> <p>1:07:00 – Does YetiCold make JW Weatherman any money?</p> <p> </p> <p>1:09:00 – Mathbot dot com</p> <p> </p> <p>1:11:05 – Is Donald McIntyre a cypherpunk historian?</p> <p> </p> <p>1:11:53 – David Chaum is a genius</p> <p> </p> <p>1:13:50 – Digicash had to exist and had to fail</p> <p> </p> <p>1:14:27 – Why JW Weatherman thinks Monero is a scam</p> <p> </p> <p>1:16:53 – Closing note on the JW Weatherman’s interview with Tim May (available on YouTube)</p> <p> </p>

<p>Bryan Aulds is a co-founder of the Billfodl cold storage company. In this episode, he talks about the importance of securing your private keys on something that can take natural disasters – more specifically, a metal plate.</p> <p>Here are some of the questions asked:</p> <p>Does a cold storage device replace a hardware wallet or work in conjunction with it?</p> <p>What makes the Billfodl stand out from the competition?</p> <p>Will there be a partnership between Billfodl and Ledger?</p> <p>How do Billfodls get tested?</p> <p>What is it like to arrange letters on the Billfodl?</p> <p>How can metal plates be improved?</p> <p>What are the costs of building your own Billfodl?</p> <p>Are bitcoiners survivalists?</p> <p>Is Bitcoin friendly for mainstream users?</p> <p>Is Bitcoin like the oil boom in terms of peculiar personalities?</p> <p>How expensive were booths at the Consensus 2018 conference?</p> <p>Are blockchains any better than old supply chain systems?</p> <p>Who came up with the Billfodl?</p> <p>Why is Bitcoin similar with teenage sex?</p> <p> </p> <p> </p>

<p>Thanks to his decades-long in security chips and electronic devices, BTChip (Nicolas Bacca) is one of the finest experts in the field of Bitcoin hardware wallets.</p> <p> </p> <p>In this exclusive episodes, he answers questions about the design choices of the Ledger Nano series, compares the products with the Trezor, Coldcard, BitBox02, and KeepKey, but also reflects on the future of Bitcoin security.</p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p>Episode time stamps:</p> <p><!-- wp:paragraph --></p> <p>04:40 – Introduction, brief history of experiences in the field</p> <p><!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --></p> <p>06:20 – Why Trezor was created</p> <p><!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --></p> <p>8:20 – Pushing your op-sec with Trezor's apps and operating system</p> <p><!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --></p> <p>11:00 – Ledger criticism as feedback</p> <p><!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --></p> <p>13:25 – Why should anyone buy a hardware wallet?</p> <p><!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --></p> <p>17:10 – Why choose a Ledger hardware wallet?</p> <p><!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --></p> <p>20:47 – Ledger Nano S vs Nano X</p> <p><!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --></p> <p>24:00 – The pros and cons of Trezor devices</p> <p><!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --></p> <p>27:03 – The pros and cons of the KeepKey</p> <p><!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --></p> <p>29:24 – The pros and cons of the Coldcard wallet</p> <p><!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --></p> <p>31:00 – The pros and cons of the BitBox02</p> <p><!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --></p> <p>35:00 – What is open source about the Ledger software and what isn't?</p> <p><!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --></p> <p>42:20 – Security element chips in hardware wallets (Ledger, BitBox, Coldcard)</p> <p><!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --></p> <p>51:20 – Is it safe to buy used Ledger hardware wallets on eBay?</p> <p><!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --></p> <p>53:00 – Are hardware wallets like toothbrushes?</p> <p><!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --></p> <p>55:55 – Bitcoin-only Ledger?</p> <p><!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --></p> <p>57:20 – Multisig in Ledger Live?</p> <p><!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --></p> <p>1:01:00 – Is it reckless to use your Ledger with third party software (Electrum, Wasabi, Shapeshift)?</p> <p><!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --></p> <p>1:03:41 – What is next for Ledger? (Liquid, Shamir, CoinJoin, PSBT)</p> <p><!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --></p> <p>1:09:00 – How does Ledger Manager recognize a fake Ledger hardware wallet?</p> <p><!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --></p> <p>1:14:00 – The golden age of hardware wallets and wild experiments</p> <p><!-- /wp:paragraph --></p>

<p>Lazy Ninja (@FreedomIsntSafe on Twitter) is best known in the hardware wallet community for responsibly disclosing vulnerabilities in the BitBox02 and Coldcard devices. </p> <p>As a security expert with a solid background in the field of microchips and cryptography, Lazy Ninja provides invaluable advice on managing private keys and using hardware wallets without worrying about losing all the coins to a hacker.</p> <p>In this episode, which happens to be his first podcast appearance, Lazy Ninja talks about how he first got into Bitcoin, his experiences with various hardware wallets, his approach to finding vulnerabilities, and his general security advice.</p>

<p>Douglas Bakkum and Jonas Schnelli are the two founders of the ShiftCrypto company – one of the most significant players on the hardware wallet market. The newly launched BitBox02 has lots of interesting features and finds the middle ground between security, privacy, and user friendliness. </p> <p>In an interesting segment, Douglas also agrees to say something nice and something critical about the most significant competitors (Trezor, Ledger, KeepKey, Coldcard).</p> <p>Also, an interesting discussion about responsible disclosures and the general security level of hardware wallet devices emerges.</p> <p> </p> <p>If you want to better understand the dynamics and collaborative practices behind the world of Bitcoin hardware wallets, then this is certainly a must-listen.</p>

<p>ShapeShift COO Jon talks about all the elements that make the KeepKey hardware wallet great, and even agrees to answer some tough questions about comparing the KeepKey to the competition (Trezor, Ledger, Coldcard, and BitBox).</p> <p>Jon also explains how the ShapeShift platform works and why the company's approach is to onboard as many users as possible, regardless of the hardware wallet of their choice.</p> <p>In the end, a conversation about the importance of privacy and how ShapeShift handles customer data takes place. </p> <p> </p> <p>Special thanks to the episode's sponsors: European Exchange LXMI and Lightning payments service Bottle Pay.</p>

<p>Bitcoin Magazine media associate Christian CK (@ck_SNARKs on Twitter) talks about the purpose of shitcoins as smokescreens that keep regulators and political actors busy and distracted from Bitcoin.</p> <p>Also, the POV Crypto Podcast co-host presents some of his takeaways from the book "The Sovereign Individual" by James Dale Davidson. </p> <p>Another big topic is hyperbitcoinization – a process which CK regards as ongoing and close to completion.</p>

<p>Guns N' Bitcoin CEO Ragnar Lifthasir talks about onboarding the Lightning Network, how, when and why he got into Bitcoin, and some mental issues that Bitcoin may fix.</p>

<p>Ever heard of a podcast where somebody simply asks "How many sats do you want me to stack right now?" and then proceeds to buy 3 million? American HODL talks about the eternal riches that he's accummulated, the aspirations that he has as a successful bitcoiner, and the life advice he'd give to both his younger self and new bitcoiners.</p> <p>You will also find references to Joseph Campbell and Nassib Taleb, shoutouts to Dieter (AwyeeBTC), and debates about cinematic masterpieces of the 20th century.</p> <p> </p>

<p>Bitcoin Magazine journalist Colin Harper is a university graduate with a degree in English. In his spare time, he takes a lot of interest in politics, enjoys reading studies on various social sciences, and holds the rather unconventional belief that Bitcoin should also be interesting for left-wingers (Marxists and social democrats alike).</p> <p>Throughout this 80-minute interview, we discuss various experiences from the field of journalism, why Bitcoin Magazine is THE ivory tower in terms of high demands and rigor, and which political issues Bitcoin might be able to solve.</p> <p> </p> <p>We agree that stateless, uncensorable, and unconfiscatable money should be a tool for all peope regardless of their political views, and then go on to talk about boomers and their views on Bitcoin.</p>

<p>Paradoxically, Austrian bitcoiner Gigi has had no exposure to the Austrian School of Economics before he got into Bitcoin. However, his understanding has developed way beyond the conventional views as he's started to explore Ralph Merkle's theory about Satoshi's invention bearing the characteristics of a living organism.</p> <p>Throughout the talk, we also discuss issues such as state intervention and limited government, the likeliness of hyperbitcoinization, and general political considerations which might affect Bitcoin.</p>

<p>TruthRaider talks about his libertarian mindset, why he got into Bitcoin, how left-wingers can also be incorporated within the BTC community, and what he thinks about world politics in relation to uncensorable and unconfiscatable money. One of the most interesting parts is about his theory that Paul Le Roux might be the person behind the Satoshi Nakamoto pseudonym, and he explains why his theory might be true.</p> <p>Last but not least, TruthRaider presents his views on the state of Bitcoin adoption in Turkey and other European countries. </p>

<p>Carlos Roldan is the creator and lead developer of Satoshi's Games, a Lightning-powered video game platform where you can actually earn sats for your skills. In this hour-long conversation, we talk about the birth of the project, what makes it unique, how it's supposed to be sustainable if people cash out the sats they win, and the future plans concerning it. Furthermore, Carlos mentions his beginnings with Bitcoin and Lightning, and what made him turn into a developer in the space.</p> <p>If you would like to see more of Carlos and Satoshi's Games, you will find them at the Lightning Conference which takes place in Berlin on October 19th 2019.</p>

<p>Dan Hannum is a reformed finance guy who decided to move his expertise in the Bitcoin space. In this episode he talks about his experience working with clients and his opinions on various influencers and phenomena.</p>

<p>Jeremy's involvement in the realm of cryptographic digital currencies precedes the invention of Bitcoin: during the 1990s, he has collected intelligence about a rudimentary privacy coin for a military project. But as soon as he stumbled upon Satoshi Nakamoto's creation, he has irreversibly fallen in love with it.</p> <p>As an American citizen, Jeremy considers himself to be a patriot: not in the sense that he follows the narrative of mainstream politics, but to the extent that he believes in the vision of the Founding Fathers and the spirit of the US Constitution. In this regard, he thinks that Bitcoin is a financial tool which helps individuals attain the kind of freedom which the likes of Madison and Jefferson projected in their political writings.</p> <p>Also, Jeremy is passionate about Bitcoin software and runs the applications which he finds most interesting and useful. Part of the conversation concerns Wasabi, LND, Samourai, the Core client, and more.</p>

<p>Shaitan Ioton is an American bitcoiner who has been paying attention to Satoshi Nakamoto's creation since 2009. In this season 3 pilot he talks about his own geekiness, his fascination with BTC, the reason why he didn't get lured by the big block scaling narrative, and some of his philosophical considerations about what Bitcoin really is.</p> <p> </p> <p>The episode has some late night radio vibes that will hopefully mark the whole third season. The discussions are open and spontaneous, there is no clear direction and format, and the conversation ends naturally whenever the topics run dry or fatigue takes over.</p>

<p>When you think of Chris DeRose, you either think of the scrutinizing Bitcoin Uncensored host or the nihilistic Twitter troll. Thankfully, this candid interview will definitely make you respect him more.</p> <p>The "ticker-agnostic" Chris DeRose, who at various moments of his long involvement in Bitcoin has endorsed the BCH and BSV forks, turns out to be an avid post-modernist philosophy leader who constantly puts himself in a position where he must argue against the largest majority.</p> <p>As you're about to hear, the man who is partially responsible for the creation of the "Bitcoin maximalist" label by Vitalik Buterin likes to regard everything as if he was an alien who just landed on Earth and saw human inventions for the first time ever. He asks uncomfortable questions, he questions even the most solid of paradigms, and has no issue with the fact that he might be wrong.</p> <p> </p> <p>To Chris DeRose, the inquiry and the search are the greatest reasons to be around the Bitcoin space and his pursuit is designed to hurt feelings, disappoint expectations, and ultimately defy norms. It's not necessarily about being right or wrong, but about asking the right questions which open new doors.</p> <p>Some may find this two-hour immersion in the mind of Chris DeRose blasphemous and against all established conventions. Nonetheless, some of his points are valid and intriguing and worth pursuing by any open mind. </p>

<p>Brent Philbin is an American professional poker player and bitcoiner who in his spare time enjoys doing the educational Crypto Basic Podcast. This is a crossover episode between the two shows, as we discuss the scarcity of Bitcoin-only events in the USA (at the end of a shitcoiny SXSW), the reasons why BTC is great, and why we're both in for the long time.</p> <p> </p> <p>During this episode you will also find out more about methodology and how we have similarities and differences in our approach to podcasting.</p>

<p>R.L. Bryer, also known as Pittsburgh HODLr on Twitter, has been in the Bitcoin space since 2010. In this episode, he talks about going to university to study Austrian economics, working for Ron Paul during the great libertarian's presidential run, and how all of his experiences lead to Bitcoin.</p> <p> </p> <p>Furthermore, Mr. Bryer is the author of the book "Blockchain Project Renaissance" (which has sold in more than 40 countries) and will release a sequel for his opus in July 2019.</p>

<p>American bitcoiner Fartface2000 is best known for receiving the LNTrustChain torch from Hodlonaut as part of the movement which brought Lightning into the mainstream. In spite of this shot at fame, Jim (his real first name) remains humble, curious, and continuously willing to learn.</p> <p> </p> <p>In this episode of the Bitcoin Takeover Podcast, Fartface2000 talks about always trying new technologies, getting involved in the world of cryptocurrencies, and the journey which led him to Bitcoin.</p> <p> </p> <p>Furthermore, you will find out more about his business with Bitcoin-powered piggy banks for children. It's called Bit Piggys and it's a way of educating the youth to make savings and get used to rewards in BTC. </p>

<p>In preparation for the Understanding Bitcoin Conference which took place in Malta back in April 2019, Giacomo Zucco has decided to present some of his objections towards the security model of Neutrino. In his view, the technology can potentially become a threat and a disentivization for users who run full BTC nodes. Therefore, this episode will reveal more of his considerations.</p> <p> </p> <p>Also, Giacomo talks about Bitcoin-only events and how they are taking over the "crypto" and "blockchain"-focused gatherings which seem to mostly deliver vaporware.</p> <p> </p> <p>In this episode you will also get a brief update on the B, an organization whose purpose is to finance Bitcoin development. </p>

<p>American bitcoiner Sasquatch Muscle had a pretty typical beginning the the world of cryptocurrencies: he bought some shitcoins close to the all-time high, then got caught in the never-ending cycle of trading between them as a way of maximizing USD gains.</p> <p>However, after months of studying the phenomena and learning more about Bitcoin and its community, he now runs his full BTC node and onboards the Lightning Network without making use of custodial wallet.</p> <p>His transformation is inspiring and his story is definitely useful to help newcomers understand what kind of mistakes they should be avoiding in order to have a good experience from which they learn more than managing poorly informed speculation.</p> <p>Also, Sasquatch Muscle presents some of his experiences working in the public sector and expresses his views on the ways in which Bitcoin can help create more responsibility, sovereignty, and accountability.</p>

<p>Patrick Miller has been involved in the Bitcoin space since 2013, enjoys writing articles and research papers about the value proposition of BTC as opposed to scammy altcoins, and holds some really interesting opinions that are worth listening.</p> <p>Throughout this 90-minute interview, the topic of the conversation constantly shifts between BTC's social and economic impact, the uniqueness of Satoshi's invention, and the vices of altcoins.</p> <p> </p> <p>Self-sovereignty, independence, and responsibility are also big topics of this discussion, and you better watch out for a strong criticism of Ethereum and its "post-modernist" approach to narratives and governance.</p>

<p>This interview with Karo Zagorus will help you find out more about the Bitcoin communities in Central and Eastern Europe, while also providing valuable insights on the experiences of two academics who write research papers on the topic of Satoshi's invention.</p> <p> </p> <p>Inevitably, the discussion tackles the issue of politics, regulation, and how the politicians choose to address Bitcoin. The conclusion that you will discover is truly astonishing: though it would make a lot of sense for the gatekeepers of fiat money to reject the kind of currency they cannot control, it seldom happens because they might be corrupt enough to hide large amounts of money with it. Therefore, if the elites find themselves guilty of using Bitcoin, then the cryptocurrency will find itself in a perpetual grey area of inexistent regulation.</p> <p> </p> <p> </p>

<p>Indian bitcoiner Rajarshi Maitra talks about his involvement in the Bitcoin space and how his worldview has changed once he fell down the rabbit hole. Being brought up in a communist environment and having discovered the innovative way in which Bitcoin allows greedy interests to coexist in harmony, Rajarshi has undergone a significant ideological transformation which compels him to spread the word about Satoshi's invention.</p> <p>Also, Mr. Maitra talks about the importance of gold in the Indian culture and the ways through which Bitcoin might be able to replace it. Other discussions involve doing meetups and spreading awareness on the importance of sound money.</p> <p>Inevitably, the conversation leads to the question: "Is Bitcoin a cult?". Surprisingly, Rajarshi Maitra responds that it might be, yet there is nothing wrong with it as long as the intentions are pure.</p> <p>Tune in for this interesting two-hour conversation and learn more about the Indian culture and the Bitcoin-related events taking place in the world's second most populous country.</p> <p>Follow Rajarshi on Twitter: https://twitter.com/RajarshiMaitra</p>

<p>Former ETCDEV lead developer Igor Artamonov talks about his expertise in analyzing blockchains and why Bitcoin has a competitive advantage in the field. As the discussion progresses, some points are made on the cleavage between ideology and development, and the ever-relevant topic of dev financing also gets part of the spotlight.</p>

<p>When he doesn't troll or shame altcoin fanatics who more or less rightfully deserve the "shitcoiner" badge, Udi Wertheimer is the kind of man who can leave toxicity behind and do a great exposition of his views on Bitcoin. Admittedly, his understanding is constantly shifting throughout time, and it was thanks to this dynamic of always learning that he temporarily labelled himself as a "Bitcoin noob". Throughout this interview, Udi talks about the BTC scene in Israel, transaction privacy and coin mixing with Wasabi wallet, and scalability through Lightning. Moreover, a philosophical discussion about Bitcoin's place in the grand scheme of things and world legal order takes place during most the second half of the podcast. Questions such as "What if we are the bad guys?", "What is the difference between Bitcoin and all the virtual currencies?" and "Is Bitcoin against the US foreign policy?" receive candid yet nuanced answers that are definitely worth listening. Understanding Bitcoin is a continuous process, and the insights that Udi Wertheimer gives us are undoubtedly valuable. Give him a listen, he's definitely much more than the toxic Twitter troll who takes shots at bad actors.</p>

<p>In this in-depth interview, polymath Wassim Alsindi talks about his views on Bitcoin, why it resembles the qualities of a time machine, and how altcoins can actually be interesting experiments which reveal the limitations of certain technological and social governance models. The discussions transcend the idea of maximalism and explore a more scientific approach to everything involving blockchains: while there is no doubt that Bitcoin reigns supreme and will remain king, there are always good or bad lessons to be learned from the more or less reckless experimentation conducted via altcoins. The fundamental idea is that some technological breakthroughs (such as MimbleWimble and Confidential Transactions) may end up being implemented in BTC at some point, but the fact that other projects try them first ensures a better implementation in the conservative, definitely more decentralized, and resilient-by-design network of Bitcoin. Also, Wassim Alsindi is specialized in protocol forks and political hacks, which makes his points about derived altcoin projects much more knowledgeable and interesting. Throughout the nearly three hours of interview, you will also get to find out more about the early days of Mr. Alsindi as a Bitcoiner and how he became interested in pursuing research in this exciting field which combines computer science and cryptography.</p> <p>If you’re going to ask me about the most underrated Bitcoin Takeover Podcast episode, then I’m going to mention my recording with Wassim Alsindi from June 2019. You see, Wassim is the kind of guy who doesn’t have much of a social media presence and is mostly known by developers and people with whom he interacts regularly. He teaches at MIT and has some very fascinating inter-disciplinary views on Bitcoin.</p> <p>What makes this episode a must-listen: I really like the way that Wassim explains his understanding of Bitcoin and how alts/shitcoins merely experiment with features that can become features on the longest and most battle-tested chain after enough testing. He’s a reasonable maximalist who understands that a truly hyperbitcoinized world will require the most secure network which transacts the hardest money to accommodate all the use cases that we may or may not personally like.</p> <p>The element of surprise: Wassim Alsindi is a true polymath. He’s been successful in lots of areas, including music and astronomy. So when he switched to computer science and eventually Bitcoin, he applied his past learnings in ways that might surprise you. Also, I love his theory about Bitcoin being a time machine.</p>

<p>Donald McIntyre is a collaborator of Nick Szabo’s, and a man who left behind the world of mainstream finance (he previously worked at UBS Securities and Morgan Stanley) to embrace the cypherpunk ethos. He’s passionate about history of money, cypherpunk culture, natural sciences, and anthropology.</p> <p>What makes this episode a must-listen: The crash course in cypherpunk history and the fact that Donald McIntyre knows Nick Szabo’s work so well that this interview is the single closest experience to having the Bit gold inventor himself on the show.</p> <p>The element of surprise: The tribute to Tim May (the cypherpunk legend who passed one month before we recorded this interview) and the criticism of David Chaum’s Elixxir project. The interview definitely is very cypherpunk-oriented. Also, Mr. McIntyre mentions “Truth Coin” (Paul Sztorc) as a must-have guest — thus establishing a goal that would take me eight seasons to accomplish.</p> <p>Donald McIntyre talks about the anthropological and historical elements that led to the creation of Bitcoin, and reveals his admiration and affinity for the works of Tim May and Nick Szabo.</p> <p> </p> <p>Topics and timestamps: </p> <p>0:50 – Introduction</p> <p>2:50 – Was Bitcoin Inevitable?</p> <p>6:45 – Cypherpunks</p> <p>7:50 – Desire for Privacy and Sound Money</p> <p>9:30 – Money as Freedom</p> <p>13:00 – Trust Minimization</p> <p>14:40 – Nick Szabo's Social Scalability</p> <p>18:30 – Privacy and Intelligence Agencies</p> <p>24:00 – Not Your Keys, Not Your Coins</p> <p>30:00 – Comments on Centralized Projects</p> <p>32:00 – Views on Hyperbitcoinization</p> <p>39:45 – The 1% Wasn't First in Bitcoin</p> <p>44:00 – The Early Bitcoin Days</p> <p>44:50 – Bitcoin as a Biological Invention, Nick Szabo's Approach, The Origins of Money</p> <p>57:00 – Nick Szabo, Tim May, Wei Dai, Hal Finney, Satoshi Nakamoto</p> <p>1:10:00 – Bitcoin's Game Theory</p> <p>1:15:00 – Satoshi and Nick Szabo Are Just Like Newton and Leibnitz</p> <p>1:19:00 – What Was Tim May Like?</p> <p>1:22:00 – David Chaum</p> <p>1:26:00 – Cypherpunk Inventions</p> <p>1:30:00 – Tim May and Wei Dai on Violence</p> <p>1:32:00 – What Is Ethereum?</p> <p>1:38:00 – How ETC Supplements BTC</p> <p>1:42:00 – Bitcoin and Ethereum Classic in 10 Years</p> <p>1:53:00 – The Only Legitimate Hard Fork in Bitcoin</p> <p>1:54:00 – Governments and Bitcoin</p> <p>1:58:00 – Miners' Attacks on Bitcoin Supply and Block Reward</p>

<p> Before he became an executive at Bitrefill and moving on to build the ambitious Synonym company, John Carvalho was best known as the CEO of Xotika (the first camgirl website which enabled BTC tips) and the Bitcoin hero who made Roger Ver rage quit at the end of a heated debate.</p> <p>John Carvalho candidly opens up about his involvement in the Bitcoin space and recalls some of the moments when he played key roles within the community. </p> <p>Watch out for interesting stories about The Bitcoin Foundation and how every attempt to represent the entire group of bitcoiners inevitably suffers from a quick demise.</p> <p>What makes this episode a must-listen: John opens up about his involvement with the Bitcoin Foundation and speaks about the time he mined BTC in his garage. He also provides some useful perspectives about his personal philosophy on Bitcoin.</p> <p>The element of surprise: John describes his debating technique in various contexts. He explains how he prepared for his confrontation with Roger Ver and also highlights the “zooming out” approach which becomes necessary when dealing with a sophisticated debater like Chris DeRose (whom I’d have on the show a couple of months later).</p>

<p>Zack Voell talks about the ways in which Bitcoin can change international relations and politics, offers more insights on his background in Austrian economics, and reveals what it's like to have a dating life as a bitcoiner.</p> <p> </p> <p>This interview marked the first crossover between shows, as at the time Zack was doing the Coin Pod. The plan was to feature the episode on both shows, but he never published this interview on his. Also, this is Zack Voell before he joined Blockstream and Compass Mining: just a university graduate whose fascination for Austrian economics has led him down the Bitcoin rabbit hole.</p> <p>What makes this episode a must-listen: As fresh university graduates, Zack and I talk about Bitcoin in relation to international relations and global politics. It’s exactly the kind of conversation that I would have had on every episode had I stuck with the “Bitcoin in Politics” name.</p> <p>The element of surprise: Dating as an outspoken bitcoiner just a month after the capitulation phase of the bear market was a rough experience. And at the time, Zack was describing part of it in his tweets. In this episode, you get to hear some spicy details about having a personal life when you’re basically married to Bitcoin.</p>

<p>Cryptocurrency journalist Omar Faridi talks about Bitcoin adoption in Pakistan, his experiences with exchanges, and how BTC adoption can help shift the power dynamics among nation states.</p> <p>While recording this first season of the BTCTKVR podcast, I was still the editor in chief of Crypto Insider. Omar was one of my colleagues, and I’ve always appreciated his ability to produce a lot of content: at his peak, he would write 3-4 articles a day for a handful of different publications.</p> <p>What makes this episode a must-listen: At this point, it became evident that guests from this season would talk about bitcoin adoption in their country. So hearing some insights about bitcoin in Pakistan was both refreshing and interesting — expecially in a podcast space which tends to focus a little too heavily on the North American experiences and events.</p> <p>The element of surprise: Omar and I end up talking about geopolitics and how bitcoin adoption by small and historically-oppressed nation states would create opportunities to shift the existing power structure. If wealth migrates towards a country in a permissionless and peer to peer fashion, then economic growth follows. If only our politicians and central bankers listened to the talk.</p>

<p>Bitcoin journalist Matt B talks about his experience with BTC in Ireland and New Zealand, expresses his views on the Satoshi Nakamoto conspiracies, comments on the importance of running your own node, and offers insights about his interactions with decentralized exchanges.</p> <p>In terms of writing, Matt B was about one year ahead of me: in 2018, he was writing for Bitcoin Magazine and I ripped off one of his articles (basically reworded his piece to convey the same meaning) when I was still a rookie writer at Crypto Globe. However, I paid my due by inviting Matt to get on his first podcast interview ever. Sometimes this freshness becomes evident — Matt was shy and soft spoken, but still managed to say interesting stuff.</p> <p>What makes this episode a must-listen: As an Irishman living in New Zealand, Matt B has a broader view on bitcoin adoption. He speaks about both countries from a comparative perspective, which is always useful when trying to understand how different territories approach financial innovation.</p> <p>The element of surprise: Matt and I end up talking about Satoshi Nakamoto conspiracies – a very hot topic in 2019, when lots of claims from different people were emerging. If anything, our discussion was an attempt to rationalize a contest of claiming merits without any kind of proof.</p>

<p>Buzz Lightyear, now established in Portugal. talks about the importance of Bitcoin in our galaxy. From domestic politics and all the way to international affairs, there is quite a lot that this neutral and immutable form of currency can radically change.</p> <p>If Buzz Lightyear is going to infinity and beyond, then it seems like he will be taking Bitcoin with him.</p> <p>Long before interviewing the so-called “plebs” was cool, I’ve decided to allow the owner of an anonymous Twitter account to get on the Bitcoin Takeover podcast and talk about his understanding of BTC.</p> <p>Buzz Lightyear was one of the earliest supporters of my idea to start a podcast, he’s followed my project since day one and was eager to join the first season as a guest. I, on the other hand, have decided that I wouldn’t care too much about reputation, followers, or any metrics that other podcasters use to vet their invitees. Which is why we ended up having such a great conversation.</p> <p>What makes this episode a must-listen: Buzz Lightyear is a Portuguese bitcoiner who very much enjoys defending the network from people who claim that Bitcoin is a Ponzi (in early 2019, this was still the case in many places). To add up to Mr. Lightyear’s genuine nature, he even bought himself a new microphone just to have decent audio during this interview. He’s this committed to the mission.</p> <p>The element of surprise: All throughout the interview, Buzz Lightyear stays in character and tries to talk just like an orange-pilled version of the Toy Story astronaut. He goes to infinity and beyond when it comes to opsec and the protection of his identity — but also manages to keep a sense of humor.</p>

<p>Avi Rosten makes use of his background in political science and philosophy to talk about Bitcoin, libertarianism, his love for John Stuart Mill, and what it's like to use Bitcoin in the United Kingdom.</p> <p>Also, he analyzes the Bitcoin-only alternatives for Patreon and inquires on the future of permissionless crowdfunding.</p> <p>Last but not least, Avi tells a story about meeting David Chaum in London and doing an interview with the legendary cypherpunk.</p> <p>What makes this episode a must-listen: Avi is well-versed in classical liberalism and the political philosophy which surrounds it. Also, most Bitcoin podcasters talk about the Austrian school of economics but neglect the freedom-centric writings of the classics. Avi talks about the work of John Stuart Mill, a man who influenced everyone from Mises to Hayek and Rothbard.</p> <p>The element of surprise: Avi recalls the casual setting in which he interviewed David Chaum in London. He suggests that we must be very early if the grandfather of cypherpunks is so unknown to the general public and can become available for interviews so easily. I reply that working in Bitcoin in 2019 is pretty much like getting a job at BBC in the early 1960s: you inevitably meet John Lennon, Mick Jagger, and all the other rock n roll heavyweights years before they become world famous.</p>

<p>Anthony Lusardi of the Ethereum Classic Cooperative talks about getting into Bitcoin, using it as a mean of exchange in New York, his take on the New York Agreement, and the purpose of altcoins in a market that's dominated and led by BTC.</p> <p>What makes this episode a must-listen: Though it’s short and a bit on the awkward side, this episode presents the scale of the New York Bitcoin scene. Yes, the city and state of New York has left its fingerprint on Bitcoin culture: from BitInstant (Charlie Shrem’s not-defunct exchange) to BitLicense (a regulatory framework which influenced much of the legislation around Bitcoin) and the infamous New York Agreement (the SegWit2X deal), there’s definitely a lot that happened in the area.</p> <p>On the other hand, as of 2019, Bitcoin was still a minor phenomenon on the local scene. Understanding this only helps us realize how early we are.</p> <p>The element of surprise: There was no “talk in the streets” about the New York Agreement in 2017 and Bitcoin is still an insignificant phenomenon in the city. This only means that our civil wars have had a minimalistic impact on the public perception of Bitcoin and we are still in the early days. This may also mean that the true battles are yet to come.</p>

<p>Crypto Twitter personality Brekkie van Bitcoin (formerly known as Crypto Brekkie) makes use of his degree in International Relations to talk about Bitcoin's position in world politics.</p> <p>Throughout the episode, you will find an interesting balance of jokes and serious discussions that may shine a light on what this politically-neutral cryptocurrency is all about and might turn you into a fan of the cult hit "Blockchain and Morty". </p> <p>Furthermore, Mr. Brekkie also provides insight on the prospects of becoming the Johnny Carson (or Jimmy Kimmel) of crypto in a new network television show.</p> <p>What makes this episode a must-listen: If you’re a fan of Brekkie’s work, then this is basically him before he became a famous Bitcoin-only advocate. We don’t talk much about international relations, but we definitely express views about the future of art before either of us became aware of Bitcoin NFTs.</p> <p>The element of surprise: Brekkie is not German, but at the time enjoyed using a slightly exaggerated Deutsch accent. It’s hilarious and maybe that it should make a comeback sometime.</p>

<p>Alena Vranova presents Bitcoin in a way which transcends financial speculation and all the narrow views in terms of its potential use cases. To put it plainly, Ms. Vranova believes that BTC would be a great currency to trade oil among nation states, in order to prevent embargos and power abuses by the most powerful countries.</p> <p>A Bitcoin world economy would remove the influence of global financial actors that don't necessarily work for the greater good, while also allowing every individual and institution to be sovereign and independent.</p> <p> </p> <p>Starting from a common point which concerns the communist era of Central and Eastern Europe, the discussion with Alena Vranova attempts to find ways where all the radical "isms" become less of a danger, as the world becomes more rational.</p> <p> </p> <p>Listen to this 2-hour conversation and make sure you give @AlenaSatoshi a shoutout on Twitter if you've made it all the way to the end!</p>

<p>This is a crossover episode with Car Gonzalez's Thriller Crypto After Dark, and the main topic we discuss is Bitcoin maximalism and how this new politically-neutral monetary system can adjust world powers and make our governments more accountable.</p> <p>In January 2019, I wrote an article titled “Why Richard Heart’s Bitcoin Hex Is a Scam”. It described every facet of what would later become “Hex”, revealing everything shady about the team and the smart contracts that were designed to enrich the founders. Car Gonzalez got interested in my work and wanted to have me on this podcast — but since I was also working on mine, we decided to do a double crossover. All of my favorite 1990s albums have secret tracks, so I’ve decided to also include a bonus to the first season of the Bitcoin Takeover podcast.</p> <p> What makes this episode a must-listen: Car is a smooth talker and a great listener. So when we talk about Bitcoin maximalism shortly after Giacomo Zucco’s famous Baltic Honeybadger 2018 presentation, it feels novel and exciting. </p> <p> The element of surprise: Car opens up about his past interviews, in which he would give attention to every shitcoiner who sent an e-mail request. He tries to rationalize the experiences by expressing part of his disillusionment with the entire “crypto” space. It would take him another year to launch Thriller Bitcoin and Thriller Lightning, just like it would take me a couple more months to figure out a direction for my podcast. </p>