What does having savings, & the incentives reestablished by sound money, do to a person's *character?* How does it change who we are when we have something that we know is ours, and frees us of dependence on another human being? With a short read of a Bank Ad from many decades ago that shows an entirely different view of money and savings, we dig into how money affects us on a different level. Shout out to Marty Bent who I think is responsible for sharing out this ad and therefore my stumbli...
Nov 12, 2020•33 min
"The logical construct behind the dissection of today’s evils is actually very simple: money is broken; fix the money, fix the world." - Thibaud Marechal The systemic imbalances of our monetary system are far deeper than most realize. It is the very foundation of our consumerist culture, its the course of our bloated, corrupt financial industry, it props up the impossible size of the advertising giants and surveillance capitalism, it creates a monetary premium on goods that should be valued by t...
Nov 10, 2020•59 min
"If any of these forks had meaningfully gained ground relative to Bitcoin, the critics would have had a point. What’s the point of a monetary network which is undergoing a constant state of fragmentation?" - Nic Carter Another great article from Nic and this one is right in line with the second episode of Shitcoin Insider, also now available for a deep dive into the sad state of Bitcoin forks! They said it would dilute Bitcoin, they claimed it would prove Bitcoin was, in fact, not scarce, but as...
Nov 09, 2020•31 min
Back with another episode! In #2 we dive into the increasingly irrelevant fork of Bitcoin. What are they, where did they come from, and what exactly is going on in the delusional world of those who who forked consensus, and created a centralized political mess in a backwards attempt to chase the ghost of Satoshi's vision. More hard forks on the horizon, bugs abound, no transactions, and the conclusion of the large block experiment. All this and more in Episode 2 of Shitcoin Insider! To check out...
Nov 09, 2020•1 hr 35 min
"One can use a “brainwallet”. Refugees need to carry nothing with them, all they would need to do is remember a Bitcoin wallet passphrase. Funds, potentially millions of US dollars, can therefore be effectively stored inside of one’s mind." - Bitmex research What is a bran wallet and what exactly are the risks and benefits of trying to store Bitcoin in your mind? Is it so simple as generating a key from your favorite quote? Or could this just be a recipe for disaster? In a time where it is more ...
Nov 06, 2020•23 min
“Lightning Labs is positioning this release as a step toward an ecosystem of Lightning-based financial products, which it called “LiFi.” - Peter Chawaga A new ecosystem has just begun. With Bitcoin native financial markets, Lightning Labs has released the beginning of an entirely new structure of Bitcoin finance with Lightning Pool Marketplace. An open, global, noncustodial auction for liquidity on the lightning network, and a novel way to execute contracts off-chain. This is the beginning of so...
Nov 05, 2020•45 min
"When governments play God, civilizations burn in Hell." - Robert Breedlove The 3 pillars of free markets all hinge on fair, honest, reliable money. Without it, monumental errors within the markets are unable to be corrected. By enforcing reliable, incorruptible rule of law, undeniable private property, through a system of verifiable sound money... Bitcoin is the capstone of free market innovation. Don't miss this incredible piece by Breedlove. Check out the original article here and drop some m...
Nov 04, 2020•1 hr 20 min
"I believe Bitcoiners have this in common. They recognize that they have undertaken a near-hopeless task. Creating a global, neutral, apolitical settlement medium and standard of value will not happen overnight. We have barely begun the project." - Nic Carter Bitcoin represents a hope for a better future, and the longest time horizon in building a sustainable solution for the generations to come after us. Like the cathedrals that took centuries to build, those who labored placed bricks into the ...
Nov 03, 2020•32 min
We may have just seen the beginnings of central banks entering the Bitcoin game theory. The game is about to get real. Bitcoin has suddenly broken onto the political stage with the announcement that the Iranian Central Bank is officially purchasing Bitcoin from its licensed miners in order to use it to increase imports and get around the destructive US sanctions. Don't miss this Guy's take where we dig into this major development and exactly what it could mean. Now is the time to hold your own k...
Oct 30, 2020•29 min
"Individuals can opt-out of their local currency by joining the Bitcoin life raft. Protect purchasing power, rather than go down with the sinking ship that is their state." - Brandon Quittem A fascinating journey through the concept of the Fourth Turning and analysis of the incredible times we live in. More will change in the next decade than in the previous 8 combined. We are entering a time where our old institutions are torn down and built anew. Do we devolve into collectivism and totalitaria...
Oct 30, 2020•1 hr 31 min
"If your local energy cost is effectively zero but you cannot sell your energy anywhere, the existence of a global buyer for energy is a godsend." - Nic Carter What do all the "boiling oceans" alarmist miss about the nature & incentives of Bitcoin's energy consumption? Can we determine anything meaningful about Bitcoin's energy use by looking at the state of mining today, and the trends leading us into the future? Today we read a great piece from CoinDesk by the many times Bitcoin Audible au...
Oct 27, 2020•47 min
"money printing only “works” if the majority of people don’t even realize that it is steadily devaluing their earnings and savings. People must be deceived into believing a false ideology about this practice, but that can only work for so long; as we’ve seen throughout history, bad money doesn’t last forever." - Nik Hoffman What determines a good money and a bad money, and what exactly does it mean for a money to have value? A brief journey through the concepts that define a money, and the histo...
Oct 27, 2020•53 min
"It had a big impact on May, who melded the "Other Plane" with "Galt's Gulch" from Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, which was a safe haven for rational and productive people protected from government coercion and taxation by an invisible shield. Instead of the Colorado mountains, May's cyberspace Galt's Gulch would exist on the internet, with cryptography providing protective cover." - Jim Epstein The argument between the "blockchain technology" and the "Bitcoin anarchists" happens to be a lot older t...
Oct 23, 2020•1 hr 5 min
Bitcoin and the cryptographic systems that empower it, are not merely another new tech to make use of. They are a fundamental shift in the ability to defend value from organized violence. The impact on the world will be impossible to measure. We go deep down the rabbit hole in this excellent chat with Erik Cason , author of the cryptosovereignty.org blog. Follow Erik on twitter, and check out his amazing pieces we've read on the podcast below: https://twitter.com/Erikcason The Political Theology...
Oct 21, 2020•1 hr 48 min
"When compared to gold, real estate, stocks, bonds or "fine art" that act as stores of value for many individuals, bitcoin that is held in a multisig wallet is an obvious step-function improvement in many regards." - Marty Bent Reading another short Bent from Marty on multisig and how its fundamentally a powerful tool for Bitcoin that isn't shared with any physical store of value. Guy gets into the concept of "deep" vs "shallow" protection in his take following the piece and how Bitcoin represen...
Oct 20, 2020•25 min
Breez wallet makes some major announcements today with their first release candidate of the wallet into the wild. Bringing the dream of a fully non-custodial, user-friendly, super easy to use Lightning wallet for anyone coming into Bitcoin. So many new features to go over in this one and talking about the future of lightning and how we can close the UX hurdle. This is not to be missed. Follow Roy Sheinfeld and Breez on Twitter so you dont miss future announcements! Check out the official announc...
Oct 19, 2020•57 min
A major step toward the next era of Bitcoin was made today. The code is final, and it is now in the Bitcoin codebase as of today. The next steps are an activation method, and a full client release for the network to begin the process of adding it to the global consensus. But before that happens, let's talk about where we are today, what advantages Taproot can give us again, & what the future of Bitcoin, privacy, & Lightning are with this new tool at our disposal. Today's Guy's Take is al...
Oct 15, 2020•38 min
"Value is a strange concept because while it is arguably very real, it is entirely subjective, and because of this there is no yardstick or kilogram to measure it against." - Knut Svanholm Another from the amazing collection over at Citadel21.com , we dive even deeper down the rabbit hole with Knut's piece. What does it even mean to measure value with Bitcoin as our totem? What happens to prices in a perfectly finite monetary good? What would a future where the growth and productivity of the eco...
Oct 14, 2020•51 min
As the dominoes continue to fall, we chat with the owner of the amazing Tahini's restaurant on their journey to a Bitcoin Standard. Why Bitcoin? What led them to such a decision? How do they see the future risks and rewards going forward? What events of the past allowed them to see the true potential of this revolutionary new monetary system? All this and more in today's phenomenal chat with the man behind @TheRealTahinis Follow them on twitter at the link below and if you are in the area, what ...
Oct 13, 2020•1 hr 8 min
“I believe that Satoshi Nakamoto, Whoever he/she/it/them is/was, was first and foremost a strategist of the cypherpunk traditions. This is extremely important because we need to understand the motivational ideology was not one of any sort of state capitalist nature, or idiotic wealth fantasies of lambos and other childish bullshit, but an explicit crypto-anarchist one .” - Erik Cason Cryptography was, before anything else, a weapon of war. How can this perspective inform the type of revolution B...
Oct 12, 2020•56 min
There's been a bit of Bad News. The canary doesn't seem to be moving, and its time that we take our situation seriously. As Bitcoin becomes both more mature and finds its way back into a bull market, we can also expect a sharp increase in regulatory and governmental attention. The powers that be, the surveillance state, and the control that the financial institutions have acquired will not be lost without a fight. Bitcoin is disrupting some of the most influential institutions on the planet. The...
Oct 07, 2020•48 min
"So the next time somebody says that “shitcoin X” is faster than Bitcoin or claims that Bitcoin is slow, show them the criteria that truly count in a decentralized network." - Vlad Costea Did you hear that any 1 of 1000s of altcoins was "way faster" than Bitcoin? Have you ever wondered what that means or what exactly they are faster at? Vlad breaks it all down. How shitcoins aren't fast, even close to as fast actually as Bitcoin. Bitcoin isn't slow, its highly secure! Check out the original post...
Oct 06, 2020•44 min
"Battles in the money market aren’t about incremental technology features, but fundamental monetary properties. Bitcoin is a pragmatic monetary evolution, which contrasts with shitcoin issuers misrepresenting a delusional technology revolution." - Thibaud Marechal Another great piece on the incentives and misunderstanding of the shitcoin mindset. It isn't a technological revolution, it is fundamentally a monetary one! Thibaud breaks it down amazingly in this piece and Guy gets into some history ...
Oct 06, 2020•58 min
What are rights and can Bitcoin enable us to make better sense of them? It is very common to hear that education is a "right," that healthcare, a fair salary, etc are all "rights" that we can demand of others and are entitled to. Can this be the case? How do they conflict with the more basic rights of the control over our own lives, our right to choose, and the rights to our bodies? Can we simply declare that the things we want or need are rights and this means we can have as much of it as we wo...
Oct 02, 2020•51 min
Were you ever just deathly curious about what Defi really is? What is going on behind the scenes of the token wrapped token printing yield machines? Or what the mindset of the shitcoiner really is, and what they think they are building? Don't miss the flagship episode of our new show SHITCOIN INSIDER! Don't forget to subscribe to Shitcoin Insider if you want more and let me know on Twitter is you enjoyed it and want us to dig further. Host Links Guy on Nostr (Link: http://tinyurl.com/2xc96ney...
Oct 01, 2020•1 hr 37 min
Are we on the verge of a new revolution in personal computing? Matt Hill and the team at Start9Labs believes we are, and are helping to build our path through it to a brighter future. How do we re-decentralize the internet? By what means can we break the censored, centralized, surveilled "cloud" into a thousand encrypted, distributed, and private pieces? That is the mission at the heart of Start9Labs. Don't miss this awesome discussion to learn more. If you want to explore what Matt and the team...
Sep 29, 2020•1 hr 38 min
"Contrary to what the critics would have you believe with all of their scary language about fraud and risk, when I send an on-chain Bitcoin transaction to you, it will get to you, no matter what. There is no point of censorship, seizure, or control." - Alex Gladstein A great throw back from Alex Gladstein where he makes a response to the old and tired criticisms of Bitcoin. Is it stupid to think we would want to hold our own passwords to our money, or it is a revolutionary new tool in the global...
Sep 29, 2020•49 min
"I am talking about the inability to confront shortcomings with layers of the system. The inability to confront substantial threats or attack surfaces that are not being worked on in terms of creating solutions and defenses." - Shinobi Being bullish is tons of fun, and getting cosmic about the impact & world shattering implications of Bitcoin is even more so... but sometimes we need to take a sober step back, and remember that this is just code at the end of the day. It is a network, with tr...
Sep 25, 2020•1 hr 4 min
“Some concepts are essential, removing them because you want a better UX might turn out to be fatal.” - Gigi En excellent piece from SwanBitcoin blog today by the one and only Gigi. Thoughts on the trade-offs, the previous leaps that have been made, and the distance still to go on the problem of Bitcoin’s user experience. Plus, Guy talks about what it was like using Bitcoin in the “good ol’ days” before seed phrases and deterministic wallets. Check out the crazy images of the early internet and...
Sep 23, 2020•41 min
"DLCs are uniquely positioned to bring smart contracting to Bitcoin using oracle contracts that are much more private and scalable than previously thought possible." - Ben Carman Ben Carman, a developer with the awesome team at SuredBits, drops a BitcoinMagazine article today laying out Discreet Log Contracts and how they can be an exciting new addition to the functionality and power of the Bitcoin system. Privacy, cost savings, and non participating oracles to real world events; DLCs bring a ne...
Sep 22, 2020•37 min
