"So they fire out digital chaff frantically in every direction, they play whack-a-mole with high-engagement nodes that are or could be threats. The enemy is now reactively defending themselves, not proactively steering the course. This is the Titanic and we are the iceberg." - Aristophanes We start the year off with a very interesting piece about the state of the ideological world and how the speed and connectivity of our ideas and information has massively changed the world already and fundamen...
Jan 04, 2023•1 hr 23 min
"This is the root of our cultural concern for crypto DeFi. The cultural, and arguably even structural, commitment to financialization is extremely difficult to reconcile with this core purpose of securities. In a sense, none of this is surprising given the foundations of crypto DeFi. If you jump straight to “decentralized securities” without first nailing down decentralized money and peer-to-peer technology, the urge to financialize is obvious, because what other value or utility can you even at...
Jan 03, 2023•1 hr 58 min
This is the full, unabridged reading of Alex Gladstein's work, "STRUCTURAL ADJUSTMENT: HOW THE IMF AND WORLD BANK REPRESS POOR COUNTRIES AND FUNNEL THEIR RESOURCES TO RICH ONES" published with Bitcoin Magazine. Link to the original read for the plethora of links and references to dig further into this incredible story. https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/imf-world-bank-repress-poor-countries Don't forget to check out our amazing sponsors: • Dive into the Bitcoin only wallet, the cypherpunk calcu...
Dec 31, 2022•2 hr 55 min
"Research from Mexico — a typical country in terms of consistent involvement historically from the Bank and Fund — shows that for every 2% decrease in GDP, the mortality rate increased by 1%. Now consider that as a result of structural adjustment, the GDP of dozens of countries in the Third World between the 1960s and 1990s suffered double-digit contractions. Despite massive population growth, many of these economies stagnated or shrank over 15-25 year periods. Meaning: the Bank and the Fund’s p...
Dec 30, 2022•1 hr 9 min
"The “generosity” of the West enabled unaccountable leaders to plunge their nations into debt deeper than ever before. The system was, as Payer writes in “Lent And Lost,” a straightforward Ponzi scheme: the new loans went straight to paying for the old loans. The system needed to grow to avoid collapse." - Alex Gladstein WERE BACK! We've got a bit of a lengthy introduction today while I mostly apologize and ramble about why I missed more than a weeks worth of episodes, but we are getting back in...
Dec 28, 2022•1 hr 11 min
"Far from playing the role of good samaritan, the Fund does not even follow the timeless human tradition, established more than 4,000 years ago by Hammurabi in ancient Babylon, of forgiving interest after natural disasters. In 1985, a devastating earthquake hit Mexico City, killing more than 5,000 people and causing $5 billion of damage. Fund staff — who claim to be saviors, helping to end poverty and save countries in crisis — arrived a few days later, demanding to be repaid." - Alex Gladstein ...
Dec 20, 2022•39 min
"To give an example of what this might look like in a given year, in 2012 developing countries received $1.3 trillion, including all income, aid and investment. But that same year, more than $3.3 trillion flowed out. In other words, according to anthropologist Jason Hickel, “developing countries sent $2 trillion more to the rest of the world than they received.” When all the flows were added up from 1960 to 2017, a grim truth emerged: $62 trillion was drained out of the developing world" - Alex ...
Dec 15, 2022•1 hr 3 min
"A 2014 analysis showed that the IMF had attached, on average, 20 conditions to each loan it gave out in the previous two years, a historic increase. Countries like Jamaica, Greece and Cyprus have borrowed in recent years with an average of 35 conditions each. It is worth noting that Bank and Fund conditions have never included protections on free speech or human rights, or restrictions on military spending or police violence." - Alex Gladstein Today we dive into the first part of another incred...
Dec 13, 2022•1 hr
There are about a million claims out there as to what blockchains are going to fix, and how NFTs are going to be used to unlock your house, and how DAOs will be used to enforce and decide laws, but what truth is there to this really? And more importantly, does a blockchain really solve these problems? What are the inherent trust issues, and where are the vulnerabilities? Today we dive into this concept and cover many of the most touted "use cases" for blockchain and talk about what could be need...
Dec 09, 2022•2 hr 22 min
"A data-driven exploration proving that Lightning scales bitcoin payments beyond Visa and that second-layer innovation is the way." - Stanislov Kozlovski Check out the original article at: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/technical/lighting-network-makes-bitcoin-scalable Boost Bitcoin Audible on Fountain to get the best Bitcoin podcast to the top of the leaderboards Don't forget to check out our amazing sponsors: • Dive into the Bitcoin only wallet, the cypherpunk calculator, and a company that has b...
Dec 07, 2022•57 min
“They just freelanced it,” is how one former employee characterized the decision. “Hacking was the excuse, but within a few hours, pretty much everyone realized that wasn’t going to hold. But no one had the guts to reverse it.” - Matt Taibbi Didn't have time to read that whole thread on the censorship of Twitter and the obvious politicization of all of our social networks and big tech platforms? Well I'm happy to dive it. We read Part 1 of The Twitter Files today with a bit of a heated Guy's Tak...
Dec 06, 2022•1 hr 17 min
"We believe the core of the cultural fissure between crypto and bitcoin comes down to financialization. While the ethos of bitcoin is to definancialize, the ethos of crypto is to financialize. We repeat our characterization of this tendency from above: DeFi engages in arbitrary and automatable combinations of seigniorage, securitization, rehypothecation, and leverage. It is the purest form of financialization ever conceived: the financialization of ... nothing at all." - Allen Farrington, & ...
Dec 03, 2022•1 hr 13 min
"One counterargument might be that the de facto state capture of Ethereum in gradually becoming more and more OFAC compliant could, at the same time, be said to give it practical grounds to become more accepted as money via state enforcement, and more transparent than fiat currencies in traditional finance also. However, the cost is, once again, explicitly the loss of decentralization, so whatever kind of money it is, it is not decentralized and therefore cannot contribute to credibly decentrali...
Dec 01, 2022•1 hr 22 min
"A bitcoin full node is a certainty machine. When a user runs a full node, they are granted a level of certainty about a monetary network that no human had prior to bitcoin’s existence. Every other monetary technology is riddled with uncertainties. Bitcoin fixes this." - Micheal Goldstein Bitstein is back with another banger of a piece. Toward a Node World Order! Another from the Bitcoin Times publication with an absolute ton of other great writing and a full print magazine to check out. So many...
Nov 29, 2022•1 hr 34 min
On the nature of sovereignty, the challenges of the world we live in, the fog of war that has descended upon our lives, and on the tools and systems we need (and are building) in order to ensure we will find ourselves in a future of sovereign individuals. Opting Out with Matt Hill is a conversation you don't want to miss. Follow Matt and check out the new hardware and OS advancements coming from Start9 at the links below: https://twitter.com/_MattHill_ https://twitter.com/start9labs Boost Bitcoi...
Nov 26, 2022•2 hr 3 min
"As the Web became much more complex, we now engage with multiple companies for each of those functions. Including all the writing, editing, commenting, revising, and so on, even a simple post like this one will involve the services of a few ISPs, a few email providers, a few cloud storage platforms, a few cloud text editors, a few image repositories, and who knows how many background services. And now it’s happening to Lightning. Like any social system, our network is constantly evolving, and i...
Nov 24, 2022•54 min
"The primary work undertaken by thieves to maintain their systems of thievery is manipulation. Deceit and lies are the tools of the trade for the thief. And there is no grander system of theft than the debt based monetary system of the US dollar, enforced under deadly monopoly powers and perverse amounts of public manipulation." - Simply Bitcoin Part 1 = https://open.spotify.com/episode/1m87ZXaFbZ5nRf0kipix2t?si=420093ff62ad46e1 Listen to Part 1 of the "Proclaim Your Bitcoin" Series if you haven...
Nov 23, 2022•1 hr 11 min
"They used to own everything, and in a way they still do; the media, the banks, the NGOs, the international organizations, and almost all the governments and corporations in the world. And with that, of course, they also own the armies, the loans, the money supply, the credit ratings, the narrative, the propaganda, the factories, the food supply; they control international trade and international law. But their most powerful weapon is the control of the “truth”." - Nayib Bukele Today we read and...
Nov 18, 2022•51 min
"I will start with the conclusion: my piece failed. Nothing has changed. DeFi-driven blowups have continued. Therefore, in the strongest possible terms, I repeat, with humility: do not invest in non-Bitcoin crypto. Do not invest in non-Bitcoin DeFi. This is why NYDIG is a bitcoin company. Always has been, always will be." - Ross Stevens Today we take a short dive down the FTX and Alameda rabbit hole with an article put out from NYDIG and Stone Ridge that prefaces the situation with a call to act...
Nov 16, 2022•1 hr 6 min
"My learned opinion is that although your average toxic Bitcoin maximalist might be able to sniff out this bullshit a mile away, Silicon Valley cannot, because Crypto is peak Silicon Valley, and Silicon Valley has sadly become peak fiat." - Allen Farrington We bring another great piece by Allen just after our last great piece from Allen, but this time diving into the FTX insanity and how to understand why this and the other recent disasters are obvious consequences of the fiat mentality pervasiv...
Nov 15, 2022•1 hr
“It must become embarrassing to admit one ever supported uninformed and nonconsensual participation in a medical experiment or mass house arrest and coerced isolation.” - Allen Farrington Amnesty for the tyrants who pushed for the destructive policies and gross abuses of power we witnessed over the past few years, is acceptance that these abuses and lies will happen again. There will be no amnesty. Farrington explains why in no uncertain terms. Check out the original article and the onslaught of...
Nov 09, 2022•1 hr 9 min
Today we bring John Carvalho back on to talk about Bitkit and the release of Synonym's first major product in the BitKit wallet and Slashtags. Re-Decentralizing the internet with serverless identities, default encryption, and where your Bitcoin seed is the key to your online kingdom. The first lego blocks of a potentially massive ecosystem. Download the Bitkit wallet in beta to check out slashtags & their intuitive wallet experience, as well as the other links below to explore more of what i...
Nov 08, 2022•2 hr 10 min
"They will come to understand that Bitcoin is hope for non-violent revolutionaries in the environmental movement who seek to end the petrodollar, usher in a world that is not based on the excessive consumption that inflationary (fiat) currencies incentivize, stabilize the intermittency of renewable energy, find a home for new solar and wind on the grid and mitigate methane that would otherwise have become atmosphere-borne and contributed to climate change." - Daniel Batten Today we dive into a p...
Nov 04, 2022•1 hr 6 min
"The creation of new money by insiders debases the savings ability of the existing money. It is critically important for money to maintain value, as it reflects work which was performed but not redeemed for goods and services. Is the value of your forty hour work week last month suddenly not worth as much because some feckless bureaucrat decided to fire up the money printer? Not in a system that has any integrity. It is important for work to be redeemable at the value that was assigned to it whe...
Nov 02, 2022•1 hr 12 min
"Money facilities a system — the economy — that is too complex, too unpredictable and too uncertain to be modeled or reduced to neat quantifiable units. Expanding humanity’s productive resources — capital — requires the acceptance of complexity, uncertainty, unknowns and risk. It’s not a neat or tame process. It’s a wild one. It’s a gang of risk takers spelunking the caverns of the unknown with nothing except their intuitions about future preferences and knowledge of current problems to guide th...
Nov 02, 2022•1 hr 10 min
"A universal law can be understood to be an objective, observable, and eternal description of some facet of the universe. As such, they can be independently discovered by disparate societies living within the same universe as long as both societies are able to observe the same facets of that universe. It may not be known as Newton’s Law to the Nakamotans, but they will likely have discovered that “every particle attracts every other particle in the universe with a force that is directly proporti...
Nov 01, 2022•58 min
"One might ask: if much of the U.K. pension money was about to vanish, where was it going? Partly to the bankers, of course, but mostly, as with any bubble, the value was simply illusory. In 2001, Argentina forced private pension funds to purchase $2.3 billion in government bonds so that the government could meet external debt Payments. The following day, the funds listed the bonds as an asset, but the value was already gone (Argentina would later confiscate the whole pension system officially)....
Oct 26, 2022•1 hr 15 min
"Imagine if all respectable business knowledge had been derived from studying large, established companies because there had never been a start-up in living memory. If a start-up then came along, people might well say, “that’s not a business because it doesn’t make a profit,” or, “that’s not a business because it doesn’t have a defined business plan.” Clearly, this would be ill-advised. That is not to say that their models and definitions would be perfectly wrong instead of perfectly right, but ...
Oct 25, 2022•1 hr 7 min
"While Bitcoin does not litigate the ethics of hydrocarbon production, it is not controversial to point out that the dollar, in that it is sustained by the continuation of the US military-industrial complex (the single largest consumer of oil in the world), carries an incomparably greater carbon footprint than the Bitcoin network will ever begin to approach. All this, while generating abhorrent negative externalities, among which are the countless lives lost to conflict and the inherently politi...
Oct 21, 2022•58 min
"to survive and prosper in this world, man can either make the things he needs and wants, or he can take them. This was true thousands of years ago and it is true today. To use a modern linguistic framing of this notion; man can either perform work to satisfy his wants and needs, or perform theft to satisfy his wants and needs. There are no two ways about this. Either put in the work to build something, or figure out a way to steal someone's work." - Simply Bitcoin From the Simply Bitcoin substa...
Oct 19, 2022•45 min
