Bitcoiners - Live From Bitcoin Beach

Would you put your kids in public schools in El Salvador, 40 to a class and no English spoken, to give them a future you couldn't see in Canada? Charity Hagenaars did. Her family of five lives on $3,000 to $3,500 a month, and if you've searched cost of living in El Salvador you've probably seen her videos on living in El Salvador. What you can't see from a video is whether rent in El Salvador comes with a stove, or whether a public school takes report cards printed in Ontario.

I sat down with Charity, a retired Canadian government...

How long does Bitcoin adoption in El Salvador have to work before the press admits it worked? Kevin Rivera has been covering this country since the Bitcoin Law passed, and he'll tell you the people writing the obituaries are measuring adoption with a broken clock. He grew up in Chiltiupán, the municipality El Zonte sits under, about 15 to 20 minutes up the road from Bitcoin Beach. He was 20. He heard people down at the beach were taking some kind of digital payment, Googled it, hit the words decentralized technology, and bounced off it completely.

He landed at D...

Would you sell your house, go all in on Bitcoin, and move to El Salvador without ever setting foot in the country? Jon Byrne did exactly that. I sat down with the BitTasker founder to hear how a kid from Ireland grew up around the violence of the Troubles era, then apartheid-era Johannesburg, then the Celtic Tiger collapse, and finally took one last look at the fiat world and decided sound money was worth betting everything on.

Before selling it all, Jon had to orange pill his partner Roxanne. Every morning they'd sit down for "Coffee with...

Would you trust two brothers with zero aviation experience to run El Salvador's helicopter tours, plane charters, and Bitcoin travel experiences? Thousands of Bitcoiners already have. Today on Live From Bitcoin Beach, I sit down with Mauricio and Diego Villeda, founders of Bitcoin Life, the Bitcoin tourism and concierge service company that convinced El Salvador's Minister of Defense to lend them Air Force helicopters. I wanted the full story of how two guys orange-pilled by a $5K Bitcoin client built the most Bitcoin-native travel operation on the planet, and they didn't hold back.

It all started with...

How does one ride with the wrong passenger turn an ordinary driver into a Bitcoin entrepreneur in El Salvador? I sat down with Pierre Valiente to find out, and his car rentals, airport transfers, and 14-room Bitcoin Casa guest house in San Salvador all accept Bitcoin, which makes life awkward for every critic who keeps telling me locals don't use it. The passenger was Sandy Wade, headed to the Adopting Bitcoin conference back in 2023. She tried to pay him with a $20 bill he couldn't break, he told her to keep it, and she invited him to the conference instead...

Why do most expats moving to El Salvador pack up and fly home within three years, even after selling everything for their relocation dream of living abroad in Bitcoin country? Jeni Ari ( @jeniarilagringasalvadorena ) has watched it happen over and over, and she says the ones who make it have something the others don't. I've got Jeni back in the studio, and she's the founder of Living Like a Local, one of the first immigration support and relocation companies in El Salvador. Oh, and she became a Salvadoran citizen the day before we recorded this.

Jeni's own path...

Would you sell everything and move to El Salvador, or is that just a Bitcoin fantasy? The founders of Build in El Salvador (@BuildInES) reveal why Bitcoin expats thrive or quit. In this episode, Mike Peterson sits down with Michael Ruiz and Luis Esparragoza, whose community helps startup founders and Bitcoiners relocate, connect, and build businesses in one of the most talked-about emerging markets in the world. Plenty of Bitcoiners arrive full of excitement, and some pack up and leave within months. This conversation digs into why, and what separates the ones who stay.

The episode opens...

Would you trust Bitcoin and a Lightning Network digital wallet to rebuild your life in El Salvador after COVID destroyed your business and the banks turned away? Kevin Ayala (@KevinAyala24) did, and that choice runs through his whole story. He grew up training as a violinist in El Salvador's national orchestra, and he first heard about Bitcoin in 2009 from a high school teacher. He didn't have a credit card or access to an exchange, so he walked away from it more than once over the next decade, a reminder of how much friction used to stand between a person...

Should families in El Zonte, El Salvador who've never owned anything pay their mortgage in Bitcoin, or does charity work better when it's free? New Story bet on the mortgage, and 122 families are about to become homeowners because of it. Mike Peterson sits down with Renato Salazar (@HolaIAmRenato) to talk about the project turning some of the most expensive land in El Salvador into first-time property ownership for families who've been living in shacks and on land they don't own.

Renato explains why charging a small mortgage beats giving homes away. Paying every month builds financial education...

Why trust a custodian with your sats? Edgar Borja (@k1elsalvador) breaks down K1's self-custody Bitcoin ATM, on-chain and Lightning buying, and Bitcoin in Bolivia.

Edgar walks through K1's new update, buying Bitcoin on the Lightning Network and on-chain, what's happening with Bitcoin adoption in Bolivia, and what it's like pitching investors 5,000 times. K1's machines now support on-chain and Lightning purchases with full self-custody, cutting out Strike, Blink, and OpenNode entirely. Edgar demos a live on-chain purchase and explains why every K1 transaction is RBF disabled, so once it's broadcast, it's final.

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Is El Salvador still Bitcoin country, or did the world move on the moment the IMF deal got signed? Mike sits down with Will Lehr (@thewilliamlehr) from Club Cocal, James (@beefbackbetter) from Beef Back Better, and Ronny Avendano (@ronnyavendano_) from the Bitcoin Hardware Store to talk about the Bitcoin farmers market, El Salvador real estate, self custody, and what life on a Bitcoin standard actually looks like on the ground today.

The conversation starts with the Bitcoin farmers market, which just hit its three year anniversary. What began as a small gathering in El Zonte has grown...

What if the government used debanking and digital surveillance to silence you? Michael Ballweg (@Michael_Ballweg), founder of Querdenken, rebuilt on a Bitcoin standard in El Salvador and is now fighting for local AI and data sovereignty while Europe tightens its grip on free speech and privacy protection.

Michael took a 180-person rally in Stuttgart and grew it into 1.3 million people in Berlin with Robert Kennedy Jr. on stage, all under the banner of free speech and the right to peacefully assemble. The German government responded by sending the Verfassungsschutz, Germany's constitutional protection agency, to monitor him...

How much longer can productive labor stay trapped in a crumbling European fiat system before the logical move is to opt out entirely, escape rigid structures, and seek an anti-fragile alternative? Many wonder whether El Salvador is truly a sovereign haven or just a developing nation running a clever marketing stunt, but the answer becomes clear when you look at how the Ministry of Education and Bitcoin Beach are using El Zonte as a blueprint to transform the local economy through financial literacy. 

In this episode, Chris Meinhart (@ChrisMeinhart) drops by to give us a raw, boots o...

Can Bitcoin save traditional farming from total collapse? El Salvador's Cherito (@CheritoCafe) de-financialized his supply chain, uses a Bitcoin circular economy to bypass banks, and runs nodes inside his coffee lab! 

In this episode, we sit down with Jorge, globally recognized in the community as Cherito, to dissect how legacy financial institutions manipulate commodity pricing to trap agricultural families in a perpetual cycle of poverty after leaving a lucrative technology and finance career in Seattle to return home to El Salvador. We took a look at how he is merging specialty coffee, agroecology, and a peer-to-peer Bitcoin s...

Is El Salvador truly a Bitcoin paradise, or are banks winning the war? AsoBitcoin President Will Hernandez (@whbitcoin) reveals the truth about banking, taxes, and real estate.

If El Salvador is the ultimate haven for financial freedom, why is it still an absolute nightmare for a Bitcoin company to open a simple savings account? There is a massive disconnect between political idealism and reality on the ground even though several years have passed since the historic bitcoin law entered into force. In this episode, Will Hernandez, President of the El Salvador Bitcoin Association (AsoBitcoin), joins us in...

Is legacy aid a fiat trap? See how unbanked communities use a Bitcoin standard and circular economy networks to achieve sustainable development. We recorded this episode right from the beach in El Zonte, El Salvador, following the conclusion of our global Bitcoin circular economy summit. Leaders from all over the world came into town to show how they are bypassing corporate charities and corrupt state infrastructure. It was incredibly humbling to sit down with three of these absolute warriors to hear how they are driving a true grassroots movement for monetary freedom on the absolute front lines of global...

Can you truly protect your assets if a third party controls your data? 

The Global Circular Bitcoin Economy Summit in El Zonte just wrapped up, and the focus on the ground was centered entirely on the raw, unyielding mechanics of financial survival and digital sovereignty rather than price action or trading charts. This week, we are cutting straight through the fiat marketing noise to talk to the world-class builders who are physically constructing parallel, decentralized, un-surveillable systems right now.

First, we sit down with Renata Rodrigues (@renatarodr) from Fedi to unpack why digital privacy is a...

Is the Wall Street ETF narrative killing peer-to-peer Bitcoin adoption? Is Bitcoin failing if it only becomes a corporate store of value hoarded on Wall Street? 

Institutional demand and exchange-traded funds are not the end game for hyperbitcoinization. True freedom requires building an alternative economic system entirely outside legacy banking, proving that Bitcoin must function as everyday money to succeed.

Uncle Rockstar Dev (@r0ckstardev) unpacks how open source software protects financial sovereignty. The cypherpunk history of BTCPay Server demonstrates how a non-custodial payment gateway allows anyone to host a node without asking permission. Relying o...

Explore how James McBride (@cnasalvador) is building El Salvador’s sovereign aviation infrastructure. From ferrying a helicopter 3,000 miles to launching the first Bitcoin-friendly air taxi, learn how Cielo Norte Aviacion is decentralizing the skies and skipping fiat traffic jams.

National sovereignty depends on more than just a digital currency because citizens remain limited by crumbling fiat infrastructure and exhausting traffic jams. In this episode, James McBride argues that freedom requires the physical infrastructure to move as fast as Bitcoin. By launching Cielo Norte Aviacion, James is betting that the future of the Salvadoran Citadel depends on decentralizing th...

George McBride (@georgemcbride_ ) and SatStreet facilitate Bitcoin OTC trading and asset management for family offices moving to El Salvador’s Bitcoin legal tender economy.

Is your home country a fortress for your wealth, or is it a high-tax cage waiting to be locked by the legacy regime? George McBride from SatStreet joins the show to discuss why his family decided to exit Canada and go all-in on El Salvador. We dive into the "Flag in the Sand" moment when President Bukele declared Bitcoin as legal tender, signaling to the world that this jurisdiction is the only true sa...

Is Bukele a dictator, or is he simply executing the mandate of a population that was previously held hostage by gang violence and state corruption?

Joe Nakamoto joins me to separate the propaganda from the facts surrounding the first nation to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender. We examine the on-the-ground truth of what happens when a nation opts out of the broken fiat system and bets on a sovereign future.

Moving beyond the headlines, we break down what a functional circular economy looks like. From El Zonte to Livingstone, Zambia, the goal is radical independence...

​​Are central banks stealing your soul? In this show we explore why fiat debasement is a moral crisis and why Biblical stewardship now requires Bitcoin. We dive deep into the ethics of money production, the "hidden theology" of the Bitcoin blockchain, and why the global Church is ditching the dollar to reclaim financial sovereignty. 

The modern church often ignores the financial rot that weakens its influence. Most organizations function within a reactive cycle. Effective Christian leaders now recognize that ignoring the collapsing financial landscape constitutes negligence. We explore the intersection of faith and finance to understand why so ma...

Is your body a fiat liability? Proof of Work is a biological law that your private keys cannot fix. We examine why the ultimate 2026 luxury is a total Digital Detox and the physical sovereignty found in a Bitcoin Citadel.

Is it possible to be a sovereign individual if your body is a product of the fiat food system and your mind is enslaved by a dopamine loop? This episode destroys the myth that Bitcoin is merely a line on a chart. We argue that proof of work is a universal law for your physical, mental, and financial...

If Satoshi Nakamoto handed the keys to a single successor, is the network truly decentralized? We go deep into uncomfortable questions about who controls the Bitcoin blockchain and how the power to merge code has shifted since the Genesis block. Juan Galt (@JuanSGalt)  joins us in El Zonte to break down the history of the maintainer role. He proves that the security of our money depends on janitorial consensus rather than a single lead developer.

We explore the cypherpunk origins of the protocol, looking at the private correspondence between Satoshi and Hal Finney. This lineage shows how a...

Bitcoin Archive opens up about his 2026 El Salvador reset, life in El Salvador Before and After Bukele, Bitcoin adoption, and how he escaped the fiat rat race for a total Circadian Health and dopamine reset.

Archie from Bitcoin Archive joins Mike Peterson to reveal the reality of his journey toward financial sovereignty. After years of explosive growth, he realized high-level content creation is a double-edged sword that can compromise mental sovereignty. He shares why he finally doxxed his identity to find an authentic path through podcast hosting, proving that even the biggest accounts need real human connection...

High-growth founders are leaving Dubai to build a sovereign AI stack in El Salvador.

In this episode, we chat about how the Bitcoin Standard is attracting elite builders who are abandoning fiat luxury for true proof of work. Amir Starks (@starks_arq) explains the strategic transition from the Middle East to the volcanic energy of El Zonte to secure his agency's future.

The disruption of legacy entertainment is accelerating as independent creators move to fire Hollywood with 21 million sats and generative AI. By leveraging open-source models and narrative consistency, small teams now out-compete the massive...

As the SGB Next Issue approaches in India, a massive question remains: Is government-backed gold enough to stop a 12% annual wealth dilution? Today, we explore why the Gold vs Bitcoin India debate is reaching a tipping point. If India already holds the world's largest private reserve of hard money, 35,000 tons of gold sitting in households, why is the state still clinging to a failing fiat standard?

In this episode, I sit down with Aaronman (@plebstogether) to discuss why the Indian subcontinent is a sleeping giant for sovereign money. We explore the cultural transition from physical gold to...

Is the Be Your Own Bank dream a nightmare for most people? While the Bitcoin community has preached self custody as the only path to freedom, many are terrified of losing savings to a single technical error. Obi Nwosu (@obi) argues we have hit a wall with traditional sovereignty. Unless we make Bitcoin as easy as a group chat, we will never see the mass adoption required to topple the legacy financial system.

We are entering a dark economic era where holding Bitcoin is a physical risk. Obi breaks down why privacy is the ultimate superpower to...

If the state can freeze your life savings for a peaceful protest, do you actually own your money? Chris Pavlovski (@chrispavlovski) moved Rumble to Florida after witnessing this reality in Canada. We explore how government censorship is a strategy to maintain the fiat status quo and why the only solution is to build a parallel world for the sovereign individual.

The shift in Canada serves as a warning for every HODLer. Chris breaks down how independent media is being choked out by state-funded propaganda and restrictive laws. Relying on big tech platforms for permission to speak is...

Why did the academic elite fail to see Bitcoin coming? Dr. Adam Back (@adam3us), the inventor of Hashcash, explains that professors were too obsessed with centralized bank models to conceive of a proof of work system that replaces central authority. While the ivory tower refined flawed systems, cypherpunks built a reality that does not require a middleman.

Adam’s journey started on the front lines of digital privacy, using his PhD as a license to hack. He laid the foundation for electronic cash by prioritizing sovereign rights. As the founder of Blockstream, he is an OG wh...

Is your steak a byproduct of a corrupt financial ledger? Texas Slim (@modernTman) explains how food centralization serves as currency debasement. We discuss the 1971 "Big Fat Lie" and how ending the gold standard led to declining nutritional integrity via subsidized grains. Slim argues the health of our children is proof of work, noting the current legacy system is failing.

Modern cattle ranching is a struggle against corporate cartels. For years, the industry has prioritized inflationary weight gain over biological vitality. Slim describes the transition from forage-based systems to scientific manipulation. This centralization has hurt independent ranchers through...

What is the point of a country that can freeze your bank account for your views? 

Today, I talk with Patrick Hiebert, founder of Autris (OTC: AUTR) and Veritas Villages, about why the "First World" is no longer the safest choice for your family. We dive into building Bitcoin citadels and why a "Tranquilo" life in El Salvador offers more security than the West.

Patrick proves off-grid living is now a high-end luxury. Using the FIRST philosophy, he builds off-grid homes with localized power and water to ensure policy shifts in a distant capital cannot t...

If Bitcoin is the ultimate opt-out, why can a single border guard still ruin your whole plan?

Mike Peterson sits down with Alex Recouso to get into dual citizenship, second citizenship, and global mobility from a Bitcoin maxi point of view. Alex explains why 2020 was the moment the lesson clicked. Bitcoin gives you permissionless money, but your body still moves through checkpoints, visas, and policies that can change fast. That is where geopolitical risk stops being background noise and becomes a daily constraint.

Alex breaks down Flag Theory in a way that fits how Bitcoiners...

Mike Peterson sits down with Dusan Matuska to unpack Bitcoin adoption in India while UPI dominates daily payments. They discuss why Bitcoiners call UPI “governmental lightning,” what that suggests about transaction monitoring, and how self-custody becomes a defining decision for anyone who cares about privacy and control.

Dusan Matuska explains how a circular economy forms through local Bitcoin trade, merchant acceptance, and community trust. He shares why non-KYC habits and small networks matter, and how these patterns can scale through educators who know how to communicate without losing people.

Dusan then gets specific about sustainable mini...

Can a rural village in El Salvador actually replace the central bank?

Host Jethro Toro hangs out with Mike Peterson and the founders of Bitcoin Berlin, Evelyn Lemus and Gerardo Linares. They talk about a grassroots movement that is changing how people use money. We explore the true story of El Zonte, where a project focused on community development built a true circular economy. They used the Lightning Network to make fast digital payments just to survive the pandemic proving the experts wrong years before big banks caught on.

Evelyn and Gerardo explain exactly how...

Are you mining Bitcoin to secure the money of the future? Or are you just a "Fiat Hasher" using the network to stack more dying dollars? 

Kent Halliburton (@khalliburton) joins me to argue that most of the industry has the wrong incentives. We compare the early days of El Salvador surf tourism, when walking to the beach meant risking your life, to the current state of the network. Just as surfers ventured into dangerous territory for the perfect wave, true Bitcoiners are pushing boundaries to build an escape raft from the fiat system that will last for g...

Is your citizenship a rug pull waiting to happen? 

We sit down with legal expert Jennifer Harding Marlin (@jh_marlin) to discuss why relying on a single fiat passport is a massive single point of failure. We explore the harsh truth for Americans facing restrictive FATCA banking regulations and why entrepreneurs are forced to renounce US citizenship just to protect their stack and keep their businesses alive.

Jennifer breaks down the citizenship by investment industry for those looking to opt out of the system completely. We navigate the maze of golden visa programs available right n...

Is Bitcoin actually helping anyone, or is it just another Wall Street game with better branding? 

In this conversation, Mike Peterson sits down with Jeremy Almond (@jeremyalmond) to argue that the answer shows up in Bitcoin circular economies, where people earn, spend, and save in Bitcoin as a medium of exchange, and where financial inclusion can look like a kid getting access to school, tools, and a first job.

Jeremy shares the personal story that brought him here, shaped by the 2008 financial crisis, Occupy Wall Street, and a family tragedy that turned “money problems” into a lif...

What if democracy can’t survive sound money, because it runs on promises it can’t fund?

Knut Svanholm sits down with Mike Peterson in El Salvador, fresh from a formal night at the presidential palace with President Nayib Bukele. Phones taken, press everywhere, and a president who feels unnervingly normal to Bitcoiners. Knut’s take is blunt, El Salvador may have accidentally voted “one of us” into office, and the results feel like the inverse of clown world.

Then the conversation turns to the cage, fiat currency. They break down how money printing, capital gains tax...

What if the real trap is not working hard, it is spending your best years building someone else’s empire with money you do not even trust?

Mike Peterson sits down with Efrat Fenigson (@efenigson) during Bitcoin Historico for a blunt conversation about the fiat system, corporate life, and why “growth for growth’s sake” eventually stops making sense. Efrat explains how years of being great at driving revenue for other people pushed her toward a bigger question: who is this all really for?

Before Bitcoin, Efrat Fenigson was deep in the tech world, first as a dev...