"Bitcoin is the most potent device ever invented for transferring wealth from the impatient to the patient. Be patient." — Ross Stevens Ross Stevens brings us back another brilliant piece in the Stone Ridge investment letter breaking down new models for finding stability in volatile markets, finding the third side of a page, sailors lost at sea, the greatest source of life inequality, and how bitcoin establishes a connection to real world time in the digital world... with the expected combinatio...
Jan 04, 2025•2 hr 7 min
"This was one of my early objections to Bitcoin is that "Well, everything gets hacked eventually", right? Everything has some security flaw, so we're still looking for the security flaw, but we'll eventually find the security flaw in Bitcoin. But I didn't have that heuristic but for the fact that Bitcoin is secured at the edges, right? It's secured by each user's public/private key pair. That's such a revolution, and it needs to reach the rest of computing." ~ Future Paul A new set of tools and ...
Dec 30, 2024•1 hr 54 min
December brings with it a return to the glory days of FUD. Blackjack has done the unthinkable, and the 21 million limit to Bitcoin is in grave danger. Saylor is running his own personal Ponzi that's absolutely killing it. The Blocksize War is back again and Roger Ver is suddenly relevant thanks to the feds who control Bitcoin being very mad at him for writing a book. All this and a partridge in a pear tree with Mechanic, Steve, Jeff, and myself, for Guy's Roundtable to wrap up the month of Decem...
Dec 23, 2024•1 hr 54 min
"Ecash got reintroduced with the two open source projects Fedimint and Cashu. In my opinion, the main reason for this revival is the following fact: Unlike an implementation of ecash in the fiat world, that would rely on the permissioned system to "allow" something like ecash to exist, bitcoin does not come with that limitation. The permissionless nature of bitcoin allows for these protocols to exist and interoperate with the existing bitcoin stack." -Gandlaf21 Can Ecash, a privacy preserving bu...
Dec 20, 2024•56 min
"The payment network has no value if your asset is not desirable. Like this is not, you cannot have this, like I'm just gonna build all of this stuff on top of it. And if none of the assurances of the underlying, those things don't matter because its value is in the quote unquote utility of payments. Money is its own utility. Money is its own utility because where on earth do you hold value in something that can hold enormous amounts of value that has no counterparty risk, that has nobody in cha...
Dec 18, 2024•3 hr 11 min
"There are so many reasons to be interested in peer-to-peer. You can be interested in it for resilience, because there are no middlemen, so it's going to work if any of your devices are online. You can also just be interested in it from this angle, the idea that if you have full control of your data, and the code that you're using, that you're running on that data, then anybody can fork it, modify it, tweak it, and create a whole... That's where the Cambrian explosion comes in, this whole prolif...
Dec 17, 2024•2 hr 7 min
"Ossification is complacency. Yes, we all agree that Bitcoin is great. But _I do not agree_ that Bitcoin has reached its full potential. I think complacency is one of the greatest threats to Bitcoin - we must not rest upon our laurels." — Lopp Bitcoin crosses a hundred thousand dollars. Your Bitcoin investment has exploded. You're looking at it and all you can see is how much it's worth in dollars. And so you send your buddy guy a message and you say, "When should I sell my Bitcoin?" And from th...
Dec 12, 2024•49 min
"Ossification is complacency. Yes, we all agree that Bitcoin is great. But _I do not agree_ that Bitcoin has reached its full potential. I think complacency is one of the greatest threats to Bitcoin - we must not rest upon our laurels." — Lopp How should we frame the debate between ossification vs continuous development and planning for future soft forks of the Bitcoin protocol? Is there a clear and obvious path that can be argued for, or is there something else at play that limits both sides of...
Dec 09, 2024•1 hr 29 min
"On nostr we have maybe a couple hundred thousand users who are active, but all all those users are holding their keys. We're actually bootstrapping this censorship resistant network. There isn't anything like that out there. Nostr is the only game in town when it comes to truly sovereign presence on the web." - Miljan What does it take to create a user-friendly Bitcoin and Nostr experience that balances accessibility with the principles of sovereignty? In this episode, I sit down with Miljan to...
Dec 04, 2024•1 hr 35 min
"Imagine a sports game where different players are motivated by distinct incentives, defenders aiming to pull the ball outside the field, midfielders prioritizing maximum passes, attackers focused on scoring the most goals, goalkeepers rewarded for saving the most shots, and coaches for the most words shouted from the bench. You can imagine that will not be an optimal team performance when they step on the field, the team winning should be prioritized over any individual player's performance." —...
Dec 02, 2024•1 hr 22 min
Guy's Roundtable gets together for another awesome breakdown. Covering all the happenings this month: Trump wins the election, new bitcoin innovations, court rulings on privacy and free speech, bitcoin surges through the all time high, and trying to know what it is we know about the things we don't know. Mechanic, Jeff, Steve and Guy assemble to get some OG wisdom and ranting for the month in Bitcoin. Thanks to the guests for joining: Steve Simple Nostr (Link: https://tinyurl.com/3s6a8yn8) Steve...
Nov 29, 2024•2 hr 14 min
"This is also an interesting case study in how Bitcoin resists duplication. You can create something which looks cosmetically similar to Bitcoin, but you cannot replicate the settlement assurances which derive from the costliness of the ledger." — Nic Carter A correction needs to be made. Thanks to a great thread by Anilsaidso, with a list of fundamental pieces in Bitcoin in order to grasp a deeper understanding, Bitcoin Audible had audio of all of them in the feed, except one. While I'm certain...
Nov 27, 2024•1 hr 31 min
"Never half-ass two things. Whole-ass one thing." — Ron Swanson Focus. Easily spoken, hard to live by. There are many lessons that Bitcoin teaches, and one that is more clearly true the older I get, is that every single thing in a trade off. And not just solutions, or tools, or networks, but the very thing that you spend your time thinking about, at the expense of all other things. What dreams you spend your time building, at the expense of all other dreams. What new ideas you begin, at the expe...
Nov 26, 2024•46 min
"Panic is rising. Bitcoin, the way out of their giant Ponzi scheme, does not want to die, but the survival of the fiat system depends on the lack of an alternative. The entire system is therefore in danger." — Alexandre Stachtchenko The ECB is at is again with a new, 20 page "research" paper on the economic dangers of a possible future in which Bitcoin survives. Yes it's just another pile of drivel from the same authors who have decried Bitcoin as a useless, empty bubble destined for a quick and...
Nov 25, 2024•47 min
"Never half-ass two things. Whole-ass one thing." — Ron Swanson Focus. Easily spoken, hard to live by. There are many lessons that Bitcoin teaches, and one that is more clearly true the older I get, is that every single thing in a trade off. And not just solutions, or tools, or networks, but the very thing that you spend your time thinking about, at the expense of all other things. What dreams you spend your time building, at the expense of all other dreams. What new ideas you begin, at the expe...
Nov 20, 2024•46 min
"There is no justice in following unjust laws. It's time to come into the light and in the grand tradition of civil disobedience declare our opposition to this private theft of public culture. We need to take information wherever it is stored make our copies and share them with the world. We need to take stuff that's out of copyright and add it to the archive. We need to buy secret databases and put them on the web. We need to download scientific journals and upload them to file sharing networks...
Nov 19, 2024•1 hr 13 min
"Once you understand the economic situation of the United States and how they're in a debt spiral, there's only one way out of it and it's to turn the money printer on so that they can inflate. Once you understand that that's their incentive, their incentive is not to spend money efficiently, it's to pump more dollars into the system, and any excuse they can use to do that, they're gonna take it... and a disaster is the perfect opportunity." ~Jordan What happens when disaster strikes and the tra...
Nov 15, 2024•2 hr 13 min
"How could any financial system avoid being captured by those who already hold the most power and wealth? Won’t it just lead to the same unequal system again, only in a new form?” you might ask. The answer is as simple as it is powerful." — Petter Englund Will a Bitcoin-based economy simply perpetuate the same inequalities as our current system with the same elite dominating, or does it offer a fundamentally different paradigm? Can a system based on sound money actually reduce the influence of t...
Nov 13, 2024•51 min
Is the pursuit of artificial general intelligence a pipe dream? Are the economics of building massive AI models unsustainable? And what if the future of AI isn't about creating a single, all-powerful intelligence, but rather a multitude of small, specialized tools? In this episode, we explore the latest developments in AI and challenge the conventional wisdom about where the field is headed. Links to check out The Subprime AI Crisis Article (Link: https://tinyurl.com/39m3x2ws) Andrew McCarthy's ...
Nov 11, 2024•51 min
In this previous episode of Final Settlement, I joined the show to tackle custodial threat vectors and the security challenges unique to Bitcoin. We discussed Bitcoin as apolitical money and its role as a digital bearer instrument, which brings with it the complex issue of secure custody. I shared insights from a recent personal security incident when my room was broken into at a Bitcoin conference in Lugano, underscoring the very real risks we face. We explored the evolution of Bitcoin custody,...
Nov 08, 2024•1 hr 22 min
"The server owns your data, owns your account, and owns the cryptographic keys used to secure it. That last bit is obscure, but important. Cryptographic keys are how we enforce security, privacy, ownership, and control in software. Not your keys, not your data." — Gordon Brander What is the key to achieving true freedom and autonomy in our digital lives? We have tried so many times and continue to learn lessons as the natural progression of networks reconsolidates around a central entity or olig...
Nov 05, 2024•1 hr 2 min
How will governments respond to the growing threat of decentralized money, and what are the implications for individual freedom and sovereignty? And can bitcoiners navigate the complexities of scaling and decentralization, or will the allure of convenience and ease of use lead to compromises on core principles? Join the roundtable discussion as we delve into these questions and more, exploring the latest developments in the world of bitcoin and beyond. Thanks to the guests for joining: Steve Sim...
Nov 01, 2024•2 hr 50 min
Was a recent break-in at a luxurious hotel just a coincidence, or a targeted attack on a Bitcoiner? We should expect that bitcoiners will be targeted. If not by governments, then simply by thieves, scammers, and opportunists. This is something that my brother and I learned very acutely with our trip to Lugano and the Plan B conference, where a man broke into our hotel room presumably to get access to our devices or steal any valuables we may have been traveling with, and we caught him in the act...
Oct 30, 2024•1 hr 35 min
"The market of bitcoin holders will ultimately expand to be larger than the size of any single country, and direct exchange will be possible by and between more people than ever before. That itself might be the single largest driving force that will expand the scope of trade and direct exchange–more people holding and being willing to accept bitcoin will create more trade channels than could possibly exist in the fiat world." — Parker Lewis Is it paradoxical that bitcoin's value could increase a...
Oct 21, 2024•1 hr 46 min
In a episode of TFTC, I sat down with Marty Bent to break down the reality behind the hurricanes devastating America and the government's inept or even malicious response to these disasters. We explored the absurdity of resource allocation, the overwhelming destruction, and how people on the ground are often 1000x more effective than the bureaucratic systems in place. We also discussed the important work of Bitcoin Veterans, and how disaster and conflict can turn into rackets. Throughout the con...
Oct 18, 2024•2 hr 1 min
"A victory in revolution doesn’t come free or easy. For Bitcoin to really do what many of us hope it can, it’s really necessary at the end of the day to walk a painful path. And that means people have to choose to walk it. Many people in this space think that governments will simply roll over and let Bitcoin win, but that is just a feint to move in and capture it. We need to push to build around them, build in parallel, and force their hand. If they don’t actively fight it, then there is somethi...
Oct 16, 2024•1 hr 34 min
You've likely been fed the narrative that inflation stimulates spending, benefits the economy, and that government expenditures have a profound 'multiplier effect.' This is often accompanied by an oversimplified explanation of how a money printer somehow magically boosts economic activity. These claims are just a few of the many justifications tied to the inevitable consequences of counterfeiting by government. However, the truth is that inflation has a singular, fundamental effect that's surpri...
Oct 15, 2024•1 hr 2 min
In this episode originally on THE Bitcoin Podcast, I had an intense and unfiltered conversation with Walker, where we dove into some hard truths about the nature of government, the fiat system, and the illusion of ownership in modern society. We discussed how true prosperity stems from good money and community-driven trade, while government and fiat act as destructive forces. I likened both to cancer—something that can't just be treated but must be completely removed to allow society to heal. We...
Oct 11, 2024•1 hr 10 min
What do numerous over-hyped product launches, massively subsidized compute, over extended investment, lack of customer adoption, unwillingness to pay extra, enormous and increasing costs, and total dependence on a few massive players have in common? The big tech Ai industry! Today we dive into a fantastic breakdown of the state of the ai market, and the potentially dismal financial forecast for the poster child of Ai success, OpenAi. Is there really a massive market here that supports 100 billio...
Oct 10, 2024•1 hr 2 min
"These findings are notable because they demonstrate that even though the strength of the correlation may vary based on the time frame, Bitcoin’s price direction generally aligns with the direction of global liquidity. Furthermore, its price direction more closely mirrors global liquidity than any other traditional asset analyzed." — Sam Callahan If Bitcoin was set to become the purest price signal in the global economy, how might that manifest before it became a more widespread medium of exchan...
Oct 09, 2024•1 hr 19 min
