Adam Back, CEO of Blockstream, Cypherpunk & Cryptographer, and inventor of hashcash (cited in Bitcoin's whitepaper) joins me in this episode. We talk about the new update to Blockstream satellite, Tim May and Bitcoin Privacy. Topics: - Blockstream satellite background - How Blockstream satellite works - Making Lightning payments to deliver encrypted messages via satellite - The need for censorship resistance - Tips on setting up Blockstream satellite - Thoughts on Tim May's recent passing - ...
Dec 17, 2018•1 hr 4 min•Season 1Ep. 42
Dhruv Bansal, Chief Science Officer of Unchained Capital joins me to talk about some of his data science analytical work on Bitcoin's blockchain, and also how Unchained Capital are thinking about Bitcoin financial services. We discuss how Bitcoin enables entirely different delivery of financial products and services. One example of this is the new feature, Collaborative Custody. Topics: - Blockchain as heat engine - How much 'dust' there is and how much it costs to move - Bitcoin Financial Servi...
Dec 17, 2018•1 hr 6 min•Season 1Ep. 41
Vijay Boyapati (Software Developer, Austrian Economist) joins me to discuss his 2010 article, "Why Credit Deflation Is More Likely Than Mass Inflation". Find out where economics commentators were getting it wrong immediately post the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, and ways to think about Bitcoin in the coming years. Vijay Links: Article discussed: http://libertarianpapers.org/articles/2010/lp-2-43.pdf Vijay's Twitter: https://twitter.com/@real_vijay Stephan Links: Website: www.stephanlivera.com T...
Dec 16, 2018•49 min•Season 1Ep. 40
Laolu aka roasbeef, CTO of Lightning Labs joins me in this episode to talk about some of the latest developments with Bitcoin's Lightning Network: - Lightning Summit (Adelaide, Australia Nov 2018) - AMP - Splicing - Probing - Wumbology (large channels) - Neutrino - Wishlist for changes in Bitcoin Core - What products/services should be built on Lightning - What's coming up for Lightning Labs - Outlook for Lightning Network over the next year - How you can get involved Laolu links: Twitter: https...
Dec 11, 2018•57 min•Season 1Ep. 39
Per Bylund (Assistant Professor at OSU and Fellow of Mises Institute) joins me to discuss how some firms today are larger than what they would be under a free market. The impact of regulation and ways to assess competition in a market are discussed. We also touch on the confusion about scarcity and 'post scarcity'. Per Bylund Links: Per’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/PerBylund Per’s website: http://perbylund.com/ Per’s Books: https://www.amazon.com/Per-L.-Bylund/e/B00LMNLBCU Entrepreneur article...
Dec 08, 2018•51 min•Season 1Ep. 38
Rene Pickhardt, a Bitcoin/Lightning educator, and rising star in the world of Lightning joins me to talk about the Lightning Network. We discuss: - How he got into Lightning - Involvement in the Pirate party - The recent Lightning Summit in Australia - Upcoming Lightning tech - Routing Rene Pickhardt Links: Rene’s Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/renepickhardt Rene’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/renepickhardt Rene’s Github: https://github.com/renepickhardt
Dec 04, 2018•58 min•Season 1Ep. 37
Justin Moon (Founder/Instructor, BUIDL Bootcamp), joins me in this episode to discuss how he came into Bitcoin recently and started doing presentations, Bitcoin application coding and now teaching Bitcoin development to students. We talk about non traditional paths to careers such as software development, and also talk through the structure of BUIDL Bootcamp. Justin links: BUIDL Bootcamp: https://buidlbootcamp.com/ Justin Moon Twitter: https://twitter.com/_JustinMoon_ Justin Moon Youtube: https:...
Nov 29, 2018•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 36
Pierre Rochard (Noded Podcast, Nakamoto Institute, Bitcoin Advisory) joins me in this episode to talk about his new Bitcoin Lightning "Power" Excel Plugin, which allows you to tinker with Lightning right inside MS Excel! We also talk about his recent experience at the Chaincode Lightning Residency, and various other topics on what kind of work is needed in Bitcoin & Lightning. Pierre Links: Pierre’s Lightning Power Users: https://www.lightningpowerusers.com/ Pierre Rochard Lightning Residenc...
Nov 24, 2018•1 hr 6 min•Season 1Ep. 35
Dan Held (Co-Founder Picks & Shovels) has been writing influential articles and joins me in this episode to share his perspectives on being in Bitcoin for 6 years. We discuss what the real narrative was around Bitcoin in the early days, and how some Bitcoin Heroes turn and become Bitcoin Villains. We also discuss how to survive in Bitcoin, as well as broader investment discussion on what 'capitulation' looks like in a Bitcoin bear market.
Nov 17, 2018•51 min•Season 1Ep. 34
Kara Haas, CPA joins me to discuss Bitcoin auditing and accounting. Especially in relation to Tether, there are many people confused about what an audit is, versus an attestation. And with the Bitmain IPO, some confusion on the correct accounting treatment for Bitcoin. As an accountant and auditor in the field, Kara is able to shed some light on this.
Nov 10, 2018•52 min•Season 1Ep. 33
Rigel Walshe (aka CoinsureNZ) joins me to talk about his recent viral adventures in sending Bitcoin transactions without internet on the device itself. His recent stories lit up social media and showed real world usage of TxTenna, a collaboration between GoTenna (mesh networking) and Samourai Wallet (Bitcoin wallet project focused on privacy).
Nov 04, 2018•38 min•Season 1Ep. 32
Patri Friedman, MD of Zarko Investment Group and a leader in the seasteading movement joins me to talk about how Bitcoin & Crypto will enable greatly freer markets around the world. We talk about Bitcoin maximalism, Crypto parallels with the dotcom bubble, jurisdictional competition, seasteading and start up cities, law as technology, and more. We also discuss David Friedman's thoughts on Bitcoin & Crypto, and what Patri's late grandfather, Milton Friedman, would have thought on Bitcoin.
Oct 31, 2018•53 min•Season 1Ep. 31
Zac Prince, Founder and CEO of BlockFi joins me in this episode to talk about the incredible benefits of Bitcoin as collateral for USD loans. We talk about the 'double whammy' of how it can be used to minimise capital gains taxes, and get an interest deduction on the use of funds. Bitcoin also makes it easier to provide global debt financing in countries where it has traditionally been difficult to operate USD lending.
Oct 29, 2018•54 min•Season 1Ep. 30
One of the pseudonymous founders of Samourai Wallet joins me in this exciting episode to talk about Bitcoin privacy techniques that are applied within the wallet and upcoming improvements to their Bitcoin wallet app. Anyone interested to learn more about how Samourai Wallet helps protect privacy will truly enjoy this episode.
Oct 25, 2018•1 hr 9 min•Season 1Ep. 29
Francis Pouliot and Etienne Larrivee (CEO Satoshi Portal and Lead Developer Cyphernode), join me to talk about their newly released open source Bitcoin self-hosted API allowing you to more easily build Bitcoin services and applications. This enables businesses and users to reduce their reliance on commercial Bitcoin APIs, while still offering advanced features and utilities.
Oct 22, 2018•59 min•Season 1Ep. 28
Steve Barbour (Founder, Upstream Data) joins me to discuss how he is turning stranded natural gas into Bitcoin mining hashes. His HashGen product uses low value natural gas to improve the economics for Canadian Oil and Gas facilities, while powering Bitcoin mining ASICs. In this discussion we also talk about the 'bitcoin energy use is wasted' narrative, and how bitcoin mining was centralised in the past, but is now decentralising.
Oct 20, 2018•1 hr 3 min•Season 1Ep. 27
Jeremy Welch (Founder of Casa) joins me in this episode to talk about crafting a business around the concept of safely storing bitcoin. We talk about the ethos of Casa, designing services for a sovereign individual, securing top tier talent, and Casa products.
Oct 13, 2018•48 min•Season 1Ep. 26
Sergej Kotliar, CEO of Bitrefill joins me to discuss taking bitcoin and lightning payments as an online merchant. We talked about the challenges and benefits of doing this, particularly in how lightning network simplifies the user experience and reduces errors. In the second part of the episode, we talk about 'earner adoption' - the idea that bitcoin's ecosystem can grow from people earning it.
Oct 02, 2018•53 min•Season 1Ep. 25
Adam Ficsor (nopara73), a Bitcoin privacy developer and CTO of zkSNACKs joins me to talk about his new wallet, Wasabi Wallet. We talk about: Privacy being for everyone Comparison with other privacy projects, such as Monero, or other Bitcoin mixing services ZeroLink framework How your Bitcoin Privacy can be broken How chain analysis works What Wasabi Wallet does to break chain analysis heuristics Upcoming Wasabi Wallet launch
Sep 27, 2018•53 min•Season 1Ep. 24
Rusty Russell, a well known and respected Bitcoin Lightning developer at Blockstream joins me in this episode. We talk about his article, The Three Economic Eras of Bitcoin, and discuss the Lightning Network for Bitcoin. Lastly, Rusty draws from his prior experience as a Linux kernel developer to contrast Linux development with Bitcoin and Lightning development practices and culture.
Sep 20, 2018•1 hr 9 min•Season 1Ep. 23
Udi Wertheimer (Bitcoin software developer) joins me to discuss the use of unnecessary crypto-tokens, why some people do it, the use of non-crypto tokens in gaming, unnecessary blockchains, #reckless lightning development, and what he is looking forward to in Bitcoin and Lightning.
Sep 17, 2018•58 min•Season 1Ep. 22
Jimmy Song (Bitcoin Educator, Developer, and Entrepreneur) joins me in this episode to discuss his recent debate with Roger Ver, and in the second half we also discuss Blockchain skepticism. We separate the signal from the noise on 'enterprise blockchain' technology by discussing the true costs and difficulties involved, and then discuss some alternatives to 'enterprise blockchain'.
Sep 15, 2018•52 min•Season 1Ep. 21
Samson Mow, CSO of Blockstream (leading provider of blockchain technologies) joins me in this episode to discuss a variety of topics: Bitmain IPO, mining centralisation Errors of cryptocurrency 'diversification' When it makes sense to use a blockchain, when it doesn't Why Blockstream builds mostly on bitcoin Blockstream products Cryptocurrency Data feed, and Liquid network Privacy Bitcoin Fee Market Samson's Hat sales and blog
Sep 09, 2018•50 min•Season 1Ep. 20
Vortex (Jeffrey), a software developer and well known bitcoin YouTuber joins me in this episode to talk about the Bitcoin ecosystem. This interview is targeted for newbies to bitcoin, to help them understand the key components of the Bitcoin ecosystem. We also discuss: the Cryptocast network, the role of nodes in Bitcoin, Bitcoin development, his course Programming with Bitcoin, Fintech vs FinUI, and his outlook for the future.
Sep 08, 2018•53 min
Daniel Alexiuc (CEO of Living Room of Satoshi) joins me in this episode to discuss how he is pioneering Bitcoin and Lightning Network payments in Australia, both on his website LROS, and also as a partner with Travel By Bit. We discuss: his viral video using LN to buy a coffee in Brisbane airport (May 2018), why blockchains aren't a good payment system, use of both C-Lightning by Blockstream and Lnd by Lightning Labs, crypto payment volumes increasing, use of BTCpay, and outlook for the future.
Sep 03, 2018•30 min
Vijay Boyapati (Software engineer, Austrian economist) and I discuss the coming Bitmain IPO, the economic errors behind BCash, rumours of Facebook entering Crypto, reframing scarcity, hard money in earlier times, and how Bitcoin might fare in a broader market crash.
Sep 01, 2018•1 hr
Akin (Beautyon_) and I discuss what led him to Bitcoin, his Bitcoin business Azteco, stances on Bitcoin and regulation, the importance of keeping Bitcoin simple, Open source software versus closed source software, and Samurai Bitcoin wallet.
Aug 29, 2018•57 min
Stephan Kinsella, Intellectual Property lawyer, and libertarian advocate joins me in this episode to discuss: His story with bitcoin Money as Sui Generis Good The imprecise application of Lockean property theory Why you can't own bitcoin, but it probably doesn't make a big difference anyway The harmful effects of patents and copyright 'Internet Censorship' as it relates to property rights and ownership of private social media platforms
Aug 17, 2018•59 min
Jeff Gallas is the Founder of Fulmo and lead organizer of #LightningHackDay. We talk about the community of pioneers who are building lightning applications, and related hardware. We also talk about the upcoming Lightning Hack Day on September 1st.
Aug 17, 2018•42 min
In this episode, we talk through emerging market currency crises, and his new 5 part article series on Bitcoin as Ultimate Asset. We contrast differing monetary views, why it doesn't make sense to spend bitcoin right now, Medium of Exchange vs Method of Payment, and fallacies of 'Medium of Exchange only' cryptocurrencies.
Aug 16, 2018•50 min
