"Never half-ass two things. Whole-ass one thing."— Ron Swanson Focus. Easily spoken, hard to live by. There are many lessons that... more

"There is no justice in following unjust laws. It's time to come into the light and in the grand tradition of... more

"Once you understand the economic situation of the United States and how they're in a debt spiral, there's only one... more

"How could any financial system avoid being captured by those who already hold the most power and wealth? Won’t it just... more

In this previous episode of Final Settlement, I joined the show to tackle custodial threat vectors and the security challenges... more

"The server owns your data, owns your account, and owns the cryptographic keys used to secure it. That last bit is... more

How will governments respond to the growing threat of decentralized money, and what are the implications for individual freedom and... more

Was a recent break-in at a luxurious hotel just a coincidence, or a targeted attack on a Bitcoiner? We should... more

"The market of bitcoin holders will ultimately expand to be larger than the size of any single country, and direct... more

In a episode of TFTC, I sat down with Marty Bent to break down the reality behind the hurricanes devastating... more

"A victory in revolution doesn’t come free or easy. For Bitcoin to really do what many of us hope it... more

You've likely been fed the narrative that inflation stimulates spending, benefits the economy, and that government expenditures have a profound... more

In this episode originally on THE Bitcoin Podcast, I had an intense and unfiltered conversation with Walker, where we dove... more

"These findings are notable because they demonstrate that even though the strength of the correlation may vary based on the... more

Today we dive back into the Pear universe and catch up on the many recent changes, updates to apps we've... more

It's here! We are back for the second Roundtable!! What do Coinbase and the Blackrock debacle, paper Bitcoin, the difference... more

"Everybody's acting as nothing happened. And in Germany, it was so brutal. We had two lockdowns. Each was 6 and... more

"Stablecoins are acting in a way where they're bottoms up becoming a country. Countries are trying to reason with it,... more

"Sadly, there has been very little in the way of a clear definition of MEV in the context of Bitcoin.... more

"I’m not asking you to fight the Beast of Big Politics, Big Tech and Big Media. Honestly I don’t know how... more

"Sometimes your gut feelings lead you astray—particularly in mathematics, in which one constantly comes across results that seem impossible... There... more

"If we leave Bitcoin as it is, it’s a new money for the 1%. The 1% can absolutely hold their... more

"Using the COLDCARD Mk4 is pretty straightforward. Yet, what goes on under the hood is far from obvious. Technical documentation,... more

Sometimes life will make you feel stuck, it will wear you down and gaslight you into believing you have made... more

"Dark merchants would never use Lightning, right? Because well, you need a node ID, an entity... Versus Ark, you're not... more

"An argument for doing a consensus cleanup soft-fork first, prior to enabling any new opcodes or other features for new... more

"Lightning achieved a many-to-one mapping of transactions to transactions... But creating even a single UTXO per user is, arguably, not good enough.... more

It's Here! Today I am thrilled to introduce the first episode of Guy's Roundtable. I've assembled a group of OG... more

Is the Bitcoin-Dollar theory a path to salvation or destruction for the US currency? Stablecoin issuers have become major buyers... more

"It’s been amazingly freeing because I don’t worry about my investments, mostly because I don’t have very many. I’m on... more

"The end result was a historical wealth transfer from regular Americans to a handful of billionaires. This wealth transfer, which... more

"The government is more than half of the economy. They control everything.What this new battleground is showing is that in... more

"The Fed, knowingly or not, is basically in charge of the global financial system. They may shout, “We raise rates... more

"The government and the corporate environment so desperately want us to centralize so they can they can have total surveillance... more

"In fact, this is the key feature that re-energized me toward Nostr a second time after my initial experience with... more

"It would be wrong to think of Cypherpunks as a formal group. It's more a gathering of those who share... more

"My thinking is always resilience. How did I make Proton resilient? And the conclusion I came to after thinking about... more

"Lightning has already achieved a critical mass. It’s already obvious how a Cashu subnetwork and Fedimint subnetworks will communicate with... more

"Historically, what do nations do when they're on a gold standard and they need to fight a war? They just... more

Is Trump's speech at Bitcoin 2024 a sign of genuine support or just typical political pandering? Today we explore the... more

"Something else has to go down in order for something to go up. That's why it is specifically a relative... more

It's time to accept some hard truths. Today we are going to challenge some common assumptions about Bitcoin's scalability, privacy,... more

"I really wanted to screen share stuff with people and make it as easy as possible and I got fed... more

"Only the giant corporations are gonna have this and anybody less than a billion dollars, these won't exist. And that... more

"The former Speaker predicts "The dollar will suffer a major confidence shock” and as a result asks, “What can be... more

"Much like the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders program has facilitated the placement of its trained, ideological allies in... more

"You eliminate 99% of the attack surface to a single moment in time, which is the beginning. And when you... more

"Submarine Swaps employ hash time-locked contracts (HTLCs), which in layperson’s terms, enable two transactions (both sides of the swap) to... more

"Whatever your setup is for storing the majority of your bitcoin - be it hot or cold, online or offline,... more

"When you have a child, you care more than anyone else about that child. You're caring about their long-term success... more

"Joltz is one company that is actively building the necessary infrastructure to support this interoperability. By developing an SDK that... more

In a world where centralized platforms dominate, can peer-to-peer systems make a comeback? Today we explore the details of P2P... more

This chat episode is a riveting conversation which was originally featured on The Staying Free Podcast with my friend jonnyhodl.I... more

"China’s current ways to censor the Internet are to block connections from IP servers serving content and block protocol-level attempts,... more

"The most powerful thing that Bitcoin did was establish a monetary foundation, a monetary policy that was not alterable through a... more

"The last point is crucial — users can withdraw their Ark funds at any time, even if their ASP goes... more

Is deflation always a bad thing, or have we misunderstood its true impact on the economy? Join me as I... more

"Educating the world about bitcoin has succeeded in building a community of knowledgeable, dedicated, enthusiastic people from the fields of... more

"...that the lives and efforts of other men are not his property and are not there to serve his wishes.... more

"In NRA, the Court addressed a critical issue impacting not only traditional advocacy groups but any disfavored, but legal, industry.... more

What if the future of decentralization lies not just in Bitcoin, but in the convergence of a multitude of different... more

"Fedimint is a scalable self-custodial off-chain programmability layer on top of Bitcoin. It allows for use cases that are difficult, time-consuming,... more

People look around and they see a wasteful world. They see endless, mindless consumption. Increasingly, we see people fearing the... more

Ideas and ways of thinking are much like paths in the wood. When we explore them often they are well... more

"I believe that hole punch stack can be a really good alternative to static IPs. That way, for example, you want... more

"This capability ensures that participants can trust the system's integrity without the need for mutual trust among users. It fundamentally... more

"It is like exercising a veto you hold for anything and everything, and yes, vetoes are important in consensus systems.... more

"The U.S. Government spends in a budgetary deficit, then issues treasuries to pay for the spending, then, at a bigger... more

Today we dive into an amazing chat around the complexities and shifts in law enforcement in a world with Bitcoin,... more

In our inaugural episode of The Pear Report, it only felt right to bring Mafintosh and dmc onto the show... more

"We have the fork wars, we have a culture that understands the importance of nodes and widespread enforcement of a... more

"This is a fancy way of saying that you need money to make markets, and you need decentralized, open, digital... more

"I think Americans are used to seeing people arrested for bullshit technicalities and thrown in jail for long periods of... more

"The Samurai wallet developers have been arrested. The government has responded with their opposition to the motion of dismissal in... more

"The internet assumed NOTHING and it won because it had the basic, robust, open building blocks upon which all the... more

"As we discussed in Entering the Bitcoin Renaissance, our last edition, Lightning Labs CEO and Co-Founder Elizabeth Stark told The Block, “a major... more

"What are we actually about? It's to an extent an open question. It's not like the Cypherpunks knew at all.... more

"I'm a Bitcoin skeptic. I'm not buying Bitcoin in 2024, even if it goes back to its recent all-time highs,... more

"If you care about your...country, read Ludwig von Mises and the six lessons of the Austrian economic school." ~ Renato Moicano With... more

Many people make the serious miscalculation, that if the CPI isn't too high, then printing money isn't a problem and... more

"That dogma was necessary — without it the people who have built this ecosystem into what it is today wouldn’t... more

"On the face of it, Bitcoin’s existence seems to violate Mises’s theorem, unless a preceding non-monetary use can be demonstrated.... more

"Hedgehog uses relative time locks. So that if they don't have to worry about closing that channel with a relative... more

"It's going up forever, Laura." ~ Michael Saylor I know to many people that sounds crazy, and I can still see in... more

"People that are in the Western world and specifically in the United States, what they're realizing, whether they can say... more

"We know the law is unconstitutional. FinCEN knows the law is unconstitutional. FinCEN knows we know the law is unconstitutional.... more

"You have to decide how to move forward. You have to decide what game you want to play; how much responsibility you... more

Guy Swann and Preston Pysh explore the dramatic shifts in global finance and the pivotal role of Bitcoin amidst rising... more

Fiat money has a collection of malincentives and consequences for the degrading and rotting of society. As we covered in... more

"The mechanisms enforcing this modern censorship are not confined to private sectors or individual platforms but are significantly directed and... more

"As far as I'm concerned, there's no obvious increased danger from the CCP having control over our access or our... more

"In a system that depends on irresponsible government spending (especially for perpetual war) and fiat printing to cover that irresponsibility,... more

"Bitcoin will probably crash again but it is neither a Ponzi scheme nor a bubble – it’s something far worse:... more

"Of all measurement instruments, the clock is the most valuable because so many of the things we sacrifice to create... more

"From an engineering perspective the mechanical clock with its novelty, the escapement, was by far the more important invention. In... more

I'm sure you have heard the claim that without inflation and the good people running the counterfeit machine, people would... more

"Whether you're a rekt crypto bro or a friend of fiat, there is one thing that is especially difficult to... more

"It might feel as if the promised future is perpetually out of reach, but building Lightning is a lot like... more

"Izzy said there could be inflation in a hyperbitcoinized world. And she's right. Calm down, maxis, calm down! Explaining why... more

"I'm super confident that lightning is not just the present but also the future of lightning. It is the interoperability... more

"The foregoing considerations are by no means an exhaustive account of the cultural and spiritual legacy of fiat inflation. But... more

"During the peak transaction fee times over the past month, our example transaction would be dust even for .001 BTC.... more

We had an awesome chat on Twitter Spaces where we discuss the launch of Pear Runtime, bringing Paolo Arduino, Mathias... more

"For too long, the world has had to endure the fallout of subpar academic research on bitcoin mining’s energy use... more

"NWC is useful for far more than simply integrating Lightning into Nostr applications as well. The entire design philosophy of... more

The main promise of quantum computing is the ability to solve problems far faster than classical computers, but exactly how... more

"One of the amazing things about the internet economy is how different the list of top internet properties today looks... more

"Bitcoin wastes energy. You've heard it a million times. But what if its the exact opposite of the truth in... more

"One night during my visit to Bondo, Carl asked me to pause as the sunset was fading, to look at... more

"To put it simply, there are now corporations with billions of dollars of investment in not just the asset, but... more

In today's chat we dive into destroying economic myths and unraveling the political divides of our time toward what future... more

"Bitcoin enables perhaps the most powerful mode of ownership ever devised; it would be akin to gold inside a safe... more

"Retrospectively, a lot of ex-DigiCash employees understand why Chaum was so paranoid.  As a cryptographer you have to assume the... more

Sometimes in life and the course of history, there are moments where simply stating the truth, in a clear and... more

"I hope Bitcoin sticks around and grows more popular, but in its current form to most in #TradFi it is... more

"Part of the problem of Lightning’s shortcoming regarding scalability of Bitcoin ownership is that in order to open a channel,... more

There are a lot of speculation, claims, predictions, and accusations around the successes and faults of the Lightning Network. But... more

The legacy financial system has arrived. One January 10th, numerous Bitcoin ETFs were approved. But is this even a good... more

" Channel liquidity and offline receives, in my opinion, are the two most obvious reasons why self-custodial lightning is not... more

"The computers used to create valuable new Bitcoin tokens and validate transactions consume around the same amount of energy as... more

"Bitcoin appears to be a decentralized Ponzi scheme not a decentralized currency. People don't spend it because they want it... more

"Since 2017, bitcoin has been Stone Ridge’s treasury reserve asset because of my extreme aversion to risk. We run net... more

"This decision, which is legally sound, has the effect of declaring all private mortgages on real and personal property, and... more

“This makes Bitcoin miners uniquely symbiotic with energy grids serving as “demand response” partners. If energy is ever in short... more

"We’re less than a year from another halving, awaiting systemic implications from federal regulation and institutional adoption, standing at the... more

"You’re a thirsty bitch. You like to gargle Peter’s balls." ~ DeaterBob Merry Christmas! In this reboot episode, we revisit the... more

"There is a Remnant there that you know nothing about. They are obscure, unorganized, inarticulate, each one rubbing along as... more

"You got to go from proto banking to full service banking and then to central banking and you know interconnected... more

"Regulators will continue coming down on those custodians, making more demands for information, more demands on restrictions for what users... more

In this episode I dive into the ongoing shift from closed systems to open, permissionless digital realms, drawing parallels to... more

"I’ve done an overall analysis of the proposal by addressing seven different sections of where FinCEN is attempting to infringe... more

"Nothing in the ordinal logic requires inscriptions to be linked to the “first” sat. So why is it the first... more

The principle that one should help men in an emergency cannot be extended to regard all human suffering as an... more

"Many people insist that governments aren't involved in censorship, but they are. And now, a whistleblower has come forward with... more

"A reality check on the limitations of Lightning Network, and what that means in terms of its long term viability.... more

The free market works because economic decisions are made by people who have skin in the game. When you spend... more

Nodeless is dead. Long live Nodeless. Unfortunately the Nodeless payment service has had to shut down, but for anyone who... more

"Clients applying this reasoning should remember that, in bitcoin, no one is too big to fail. There is no government... more

"A recent anonymous proposal specifies a system using timelocked Bitcoin transactions and chaumian ecash mints to create an economic incentive... more

"The difference between the Linden Dollar, World of Warcraft Gold, Fortnite V-Bucks, the Euro, and the U.S. dollar is in... more

The election of Javier Milei is unlikely the be the next El Salvador, but I don't think it needs to... more

"The recurring cycle of economic booms followed by inevitable busts has remained a puzzle for generations of observers. While mainstream... more

"Ultimately, my goal with Coinos is to make Bitcoin a super simple user interface for "normies" to be able to... more

Is Bitcoin destined to become another fiat system? Where we end up in a world where the dominant instrument isn't... more

"Unique to the emergent Bitcoin financial system is the application of cryptography to fundamental financial functions. Novel technologies exist, are... more

LIGHTNING IS DEAD! Did you hear about the new exploit discovered that may be the "nail in the coffin" of... more

"We have no interest in causing confusion, mistakes, or deception. That sounds more like a job for those responsible for... more

It's often said that Bitcoin is too limited, that you can't build anything interesting on top of the Bitcoin chain...... more

"Will Bitcoin adoption improve the monetary policy behaviors of the Federal Reserve? I submit that it won’t. I do not... more

"Timeout Trees is a very concrete and specific proposal for a channel factory design that actually attempts to address the... more

We are diving back into the Bitcoin basics series today! Now that we understand how bitcoin works, what is important,... more

"After four years of work, James O'Beirne's assumeutxo option to allow instant UTXO set bootstrapping for your Bitcoin node is... more

"There used to be tradeoffs between Lightning and fiat: UX vs. sovereignty; UX vs. speed; UX vs. cost; off-the-shelf fiat payment... more

"It requires no consensus changes to Bitcoin at all. The trick is lifting all of that logic off-chain and being... more

I hope you listened to the recent read by Beautyon, Bitcoin and Software Reliability, because today we continue our FUD... more

Obi Nwosu, co-founder and CEO of Fedi, joins us today to talk about the new innovations and challenges in decentralising... more

"With Bitcoin, lives and money are at stake. Interruption of its service can cause a cascade of losses and unintended... more

"Our existing financial system is a mirage of wealth and liquidity, sustained by an ever-expanding money supply. Bitcoin emerges as... more

In this episode, I talked with Zack ₿omsta, the visionary leader behind Pivotal Pleb. Pivotal Pleb is on a mission... more

"Today historians focus on the symptoms of Rome’s fall, the consequences: The moral decay, the economic decline, the fall in... more

"If the merchant wants the bitcoin and you pay in fiat_, that is you shifting the burden of fiat friction... more

"Take the idea of proof-of-stake as a base layer consensus mechanism, and throw the idea away for right now. That's... more

"This has been one of the most effective psychological operations that has ever been conducted on the public in human... more

Today we sit down with Utxo, founder of Nodeless, on understanding the design space for Bitcoin services, the challenges of... more

"It means that, given an open-source model, this could help bring about the ability to: Independently calculate the price... more

A deflationary money is going to destroy the economy! If the value of money keeps going up, then no one... more

"Everything about the concept of a social network and the incredible potential and beauty of #nostr as a protocol is... more

"When discussing consensus mechanisms for different cryptocurrencies, one issue that often causes arguments is a lack of understanding (and definition) of... more

"I believe it’s important to go back to what this sovereignty is made of. Bitcoin works because an economic majority... more

"To not die, Bitcoin must become more used. The current thesis accepted by most “maximalists” is that Bitcoin will continue... more

"Often overlooked is the importance of interoperability between not only the second-layer protocol and Bitcoin but the layer-2 protocols themselves.... more

"When reading a draft of this post, my wife got kind of depressed right around here. Her macabre question, basically,... more

"The headroom there isn’t unlimited — expect it to show up as fee pressure and backlogs and less ability to... more

"While bitcoin is still mainly seen as digital currency, it’s essentially a timestamped log with special properties. As such, it... more

With so many common misconceptions about money, how can we possibly make sense of Bitcoin for customers who have spent... more

"A successful blind merge mined sidechain with significant MEV opportunities could offer Bitcoin significant benefits, which could more than offset... more

We have an incredible chat today with Pablof7z who is on a mission to make Nostr the global, decentralized marketplace.... more

"Talk to a bitcoin maximalist – someone who believes that bitcoin is the only digital asset with innate value – and, more... more

"Bitcoin is often referred to as a secure timestamping service. We never had a global record of truth with trustworthy... more

"Bitcoin represents the explicit encoding of previously implicit values of the tech community. It's not just software — it is... more

"Some networks are “smart.” They offer sophisticated services that can be delivered to very simple end-user devices on the “edge”... more

"The obsession with consumer payments in the Bitcoin community is an unfortunate relic of the fiat money era. Generations that... more

"To do our best to minimize the economics jargon once again, we might simply ask: what are you going to... more

"While many of the innovations in the space are new, they’re built on decades of work that led to this... more

"Since 1800, in 51 out of 52 cases where a country’s debt-to-GDP ratio reached 130%, the country eventually defaulted. The... more

Ai agents are going to be able to seek out, delegate, and pay for micro services from an ecosystem of... more

"Today Americans celebrate 246 years of independence from the British Empire. On this day in 1776 the Founding Fathers made... more

"Your barber or stylist likely has the broadest network of anyone you know. People from every walk of life, including... more

We recently had Aleks Svetski back on at Ai Unchained to discuss the project we hinted at in episode 2... more

"Neither a startup nor a bank will ever be able to cost-effectively compete on a global scale with the Lightning... more

"Investing in bitcoin, we believe, is like having the ability to buy shares of a general “Internet ETF” back in... more

"bitcoin is a protocol stack which we can expect to be expanding for many decades, and its foundation is that... more

"...At some point the entire financial system becomes a wholly owned subsidiary of the Federal Reserve" — Peter St. Onge Today... more

"Expect BlackRock to turn around and shill this to banks, and in particular big banks, such that JPMorgan, for example, can itself... more

"The more wonderful something is, the more passion it will arouse. Bitcoin is among the greatest wonders of the late-modern... more

"What is Bitcoin? Many have attempted to answer this question, but I believe that our quest to do so is doomed... more

"Zapvertising has two forms, and I believe there is a crucial difference between the two. In one version, a company... more

With the banking crisis just getting started, with the SEC going after Binance and Coinbase, with rumors of Prime Trust... more

"Nostr isn't just a social network, in a similar way that Bitcoin isn't just a transaction network. Both of these... more

"Much like how two nuclear bombs ended World War II, capital-crushing central bank policy rate hikes and Russian sanctions were... more

"Price inflation is the highest it’s been in decades. Labor participation is the lowest it’s been in decades. Wealth inequality... more

"The idea of a language user interface as the next step from the thumb tapping we’ve become used to over... more

With the Introduction of Ark, the new 2nd layer payments and privacy protocol introduced with Read_734. I left with a... more

This episode will be part review, and part just going over some very practical, step by step ways to think... more

"Ark is a trustless, distinct layer two protocol with unilateral exit. ASPs cannot steal users’ funds or link senders &... more

"an unbounded number of assets can be minted and/or moved in a single on-chain transaction. This off-chain first design enables... more

Welcome to the first episode of AI Unchained, a new show exploring how AI technology can be a means of... more

"Permission can only be denied if it is requested. Direct, peer-to-peer interaction obviates permission and equalizes market power. Don’t request... more

"The biggest complaint members of my audience make about Nostr is the sheer dominance of Bitcoin content. This is understandable. Nostr uses... more

"Bitcoin transaction fees limit network abuse by making usage expensive. There is a cost to every transaction, set by a... more

"This very dominance is causing certain countries to seek a way to be less dependent on the USD and the... more

"The question of who controls the ability to merge code changes into Bitcoin Core’s GitHub repository tends to come up on a recurring... more

Bitcoin is a public good. The maintenance and stewardship of the network rests on the conviction and work of 10s... more

"The fall of First Republic Bank was the second-largest bank failure by assets in US history, putting us in the... more

"If Tor is an anonymous remailer, meaning a protocol facilitating the anonymous forwarding and receiving of messages between peers, Nostr... more

"Banks are highly regulated public-private partnerships in an environment where new charters are excruciatingly hard to obtain, and as such... more

"The title of this book may evoke the kind of question that i hear once in a while: "Why do... more

"Central Banking is successful alchemy in this sense. The money- issuing institutions of the world have found a way to... more

"I believe that in the open /attention/ information economy we find ourselves in, value will mostly derive from effective curation,... more

"Can you imagine a world in which you are restricted from buying meat for a while because you have already... more

The Lightning Network finally strikes in this Bitcoin Basics episode! Now that we understand the fundamentals of keys, wallets, transactions,... more

"This was how more mainstream Bitcoin culture degraded from intellectual expressions of ideas (2017-era debates) to tribal recreations of the... more

"“In the old days they didn’t even use tables and chairs. They sat on beer crates and ate off the... more

"Of all the objections to Bitcoin, the objection that it “wastes” electricity is the most absurd. This thinking betrays a... more

"Generally, what we’re talking about here is unregulated (or lightly regulated), uninsured investors, LLCs, Funds and privately controlled “Shadow Banking”... more

Prices are relative, Bitcoin is infinitely scalable, stability for the sake of stability is undesirable, maximal instability in prices maximizes... more

"and the uniparty is in strong agreement here. both know that losing control of the money and the banks is... more

"Thus was the dubious “clear and present danger” standard born. Holmes himself sought to redefine the standard later that same... more

Bitcoin is ultimately just a piece of software, the network – the global, censorship resistant, immutable system – is ultimately... more

"The question that the fiat system answers is the following: who is allowed to counterfeit currency, and how much? Further,... more