Bitcoin Takeover Podcast

S17 E32: Perry E. Metzger on Bitcoin in 2008, Cypherpunk Culture & AI Optimism Time stamps: 00:00:50 - Introducing Perry E. Metzger 00:03:06 - Perry Metzger's Background 00:06:04 - The Cryptography Mailing List's Origins 00:07:36 - "The Code Breakers" & Early Influences in Cryptography 00:11:19 - The Cypherpunks Era and PGP 00:22:08 - The State of Cryptography in 2008 00:24:20 - Satoshi's Bitcoin Announcement on Metzdowd 00:28:52 - Bitcoin's Key Innovations 00:32:39 - Critique of Proof of Work 00:36:21 - Sponsors 00:40:10 - Scalability and Future Challenges 00:48:41 - Initial Reactions to Bitcoin 00:51:21 - Early Criticisms of Bitcoin from James A. Donald & Ray Dillinger 01:05:16 - Perry's Moderation of the Bitcoin Discussion 01:08:16 - Satoshi's Anonymity and Mailing...

Alex Waltz is a prominent Bitcoin historian and film maker, who specializes in digging up information from the first months of Bitcoin's existence. Recently, he launched the ”First Bitcoin Miner” project in order to question whether or not Hal Finney truly was the second mining node on the Bitcoin network. In this episode, we talk about his work and some geeky facts about Bitcoin's history. Read Bitcoin: Year One (free download): https://bitcoin-takeover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Bitcoin-Year-One-Vlad-Costea-Ani-Comic-Book-Demo.pdf Read Alex's research: https://1stbitcoinminer.com Sponsors: Proudly sponsored by Orangerock.com: Trade Without Limits Orangerock is the pro trading terminal that fits...

Martin Matejka is the CEO of Firefish, a company which offers a platform where BTC holders can connect with fiat borrowers in order to achieve the ”never sell your bitcoin” status. In this episode, we talk about how these BTC-backed loans work, and also pursue a more philosophical conversation about the purpose of Bitcoin and whether or not it's currently achieving it. Sponsors: Proudly sponsored by Orangerock.com: Trade Without Limits Orangerock is the pro trading terminal that fits in your pocket. Perps and spot, instant cross-chain swaps, and a self-custodial wallet. Trade crypto, stocks, and commodities with up to 40x le...

Grafton Clark is best known in the Bitcoin space for his work at SatoshiLabs and Vexl. But more recently, he discovered vibe coding and completely fell in love with it. In this episode, we talk about all the cool stuff you can just build with help from AI... and where Bitcoin fits into this equation. Hopefully, this dialogue will inspire you to create something cool, that reignites your love for computers. Time stamps: 00:00:36 Intro: Grafton on freedom of transactions & cash 00:01:45 Breaking FUD: onboarding a friend through gaming 00:03:13 Writing for humans or for AI to summarize? 00:05:40 The internet's resurgence & discovering Nostr 00:07:42...

Josh Swihart is the founder of ZODL: the Zcash Open Development Lab. Basically a for profit reincarnation of the old Electric Coin Company, which inherited the dev teams and projects. During his previous Bitcoin Takeover podcast appearance in November 2024 (S15 E62), Zcash was a struggling privacy project with very little support and a rather disappointing price action. In June 2026, Zcash is the rising star of the cryptocurrency market, with plans to scale to billions of users and ever-improving shielding technology. In this episode, we talk about the good, the bad, and the controversial moments in the recent history of Zcash...

Kieran Mesquka is a contributor to privacy projects, best known for his work on Railgun for Ethereum. He is also an advocate for freedom-maximizing technologies and a connoisseur of Zero Knowledge privacy. In this episode, we talk about what it's like to build shielded pools and anonymization tools in a political landscape that actively fights against it. Time stamps: 00:01:10 - Introducing Kieran Mesquka 00:02:21 - Kieran's Early Crypto Involvement, GPU Mining 00:03:54 - Discovering Bitcoin 00:06:31 - Transition to Ethereum Smart Contracts 00:10:24 - Motivation for Working on Privacy 00:20:33 - Comparing Tornado Cash and Railgun 00:26:30 - Why Tornado Cash Developers Got in Trouble 00:29:10...

Almost 9 years since the big split of the Bitcoin community, it's time to learn more about how the Bitcoin Cash chain developed. Calin Culianu is the creator of Fulcrum, an efficient privacy-preserving SPV client. Steve Thurmond is the most ardent advocate for Cash Stamps: a convenient paper wallet system that's used for gifting. Throughout the episode, more BCH community members will join to have the conversation that you will never hear on any other Bitcoin podcast. Time stamps: 00:01:09 Introducing Calin Culianu & Steve Thurmond 00:02:37 The Evolution of Bitcoin Cash 00:03:59 Who is Behind Bitcoin Cash Now? 00:06:34 Narratives and Misconceptions 00:07:53 Vlad's Perspective on...

Milan De Reede is the co-founder of Nano GPT: a service that allows you to access all the premium (as well as free) AI models from the same interface, as you pay with bitcoin (and a bunch of other supported coins) for every query and prompt. It successfully allows users to experiment, save money on otherwise expensive subscriptions, and build without any limits (outside of the tokens budget). In this episode, we talk about the origins of Nano GPT, why it's so useful, and how you can get started with vibe coding your dream project. Essentially, my conversation with Milan...

Zach Herbert is the CEO of Foundation, a company which specializes in building hardware wallets that offer extra security features. The latest model, the Passport Prime, aims to also replace YubiKey for Two Factor Authentication and other more expensive encrypted storage devices. But now thanks to AI and the open source app store, new possibilities have opened up. Buy your Passport Prime using promo code ”BTCTKVR” and get a free bumper case, worth $19! Time stamps: 00:01:07 Introducing Zach Herbert, CEO of Foundation 00:03:11 Live Unboxing of Passport Prime 00:04:14 Foundation's Sci-Fi Inspiration 00:05:32 Passport Prime First Impressions 00:08:40 Factory Reset and Resale 00:09:49 Quantum Link and Blue...

Hunter Beast is the author of BIP360, the most popular proposal to add quantum resistant signatures to Bitcoin. Mark Karpelès is the former CEO of Mt. Gox and the creator of Tiban wallet. In this episode, they talk about the looming quantum threat. Time stamps: 00:00:56 Introducing Hunter Beast 00:02:38 Hunter Beast's New Role at Surmount Systems and Quantum Urgency 00:05:28 The Timeline for a Quantum Upgrade 00:07:07 The Need for a Concrete Technical Process 00:09:36 Surmount Systems' Fundraising and Mission 00:12:30 What is Surmount Systems? 00:15:09 Mark Karpeles Joins the Conversation 00:16:31 Lessons Learned from Mt. Gox 00:19:18 Quantum Resistance and BIP32 HD Wallets 00:25:22 The Debate on S...

Jeremy Rubin is the author of BIP 119 (OP_CTV, Check Template Verify) and co-author of BIP 348 (CSFS, Check Sig From Stack). More recently, he started working on Char: a decentralized shared sequencer for Bitcoin layer 2s. In this episode, which we recorded at the LayerTwo Labs booth during the Bitcoin 2026 conference in Las Vegas, we talk about the challenges involved in improving Bitcoin and why Jeremy chooses to be a relentless builder even in an adversarial environment. Time stamps: 00:00:48 Podcast Introduction and Sponsors 00:03:02 Jeremy Rubin's Bitcoin Journey 00:03:24 Introduction to Check Template Verify (CTV) 00:04:44 The Philosophy Behind CTV 00:06:40 CTV for Congestion...

After 15 years of being a Bitcoin-only maximalist and about a decade of promoting BIP300 as a soft fork, LayerTwo Labs CEO Paul Sztorc decided to launch Ecash: a hard fork of Bitcoin in which every BTC holder gets free coins. There's a catch, though: while everyone can claim 1 ecash for every bitcoin that they own, Satoshi can only claim half. Meaning that a returning Satoshi will only be able to claim half his coins, while the other half (550k) is currently being sold to investors in order to fund the development and bootstrapping of Ecash. What's more controversial: the hard...

Amir Taaki is one of the first Bitcoin developers to join the project and today he stands out as one of the most prominent cypherpunks and privacy advocates. Currently, he is working towards building DarkFi. Harry Halpin is one of the most prominent privacy advocates in academia, and an entrepreneur who focuses on maximizing human rights. Today, he is the CEO of Nym and he works towards normalizing privacy. Christopher Cialone is a big privacy advocate whose current focus is to free the Tornado Cash devs (especially Roman Storm) and the Samourai Wallet devs. In this episode, we talk about...

Amaury Séchet is the developer who forked Bitcoin in August 2017 to create Bitcoin Cash. Three years later, in the aftermath of an internal conflict about developer funding mechanisms, he also forked Bitcoin Cash to create Ecash (XEC): the evolution of the Bitcoin ABC client which adds the Avalanche protocol for a combination between the battle-tested Proof of Work security and the instant Proof of Stake finality. In this episode, we talk about the evolution of the Bitcoin protocol and why hard forks matter. Time stamps: 00:01:19 Introducing Amaury Séchet 00:03:06 Bitcoin Cash vs. eCash Price & Market Dynamics 00:05:05 Nihilism & Casino Culture in...

Karl Kreder, better known as Dr. K, is the architect of the Quai network: a layered blockchain stack which maximizes the power of proof of work to enable high transaction throughput. Similar in design with Peter Todd's idea of Tree Chains, Quai finds itself at the bleeding edge of cryptocurrency research: and might one day help scale Bitcoin too. Recently, Quai got listed on Kraken and appears to be gaining momentum. But the road to mainstream adoption and replacing banks is still long... Time stamps: 00:01:05 – Vlad introduces Dr. K, sponsors, and announces a Zcash giveaway. 00:02:36 – Quai’s recent Kraken listing and it...

Lukas Hozda is the incumbent genius at Braiins mining: the Jack of all trades who's been with the company since he finished high school and can get assigned to any project. He wrote "Programming Bitcoin in Rust" and lately he's scrutinized BIP110. Time stamps: 00:00:46 – Introducing Lukas Hosoda, author and Rust developer at Braiins 00:03:08 – Discovering Bitcoin at age 12 and mining 00:07:04 – Career at Braiins 00:09:43 – Braiins Office Mining & ASICs 00:13:01 – Braiins Mini Miner (BMM101) 00:15:16 – Drivechains & Sidechains 00:17:49 – Bitcoin News & Braiins Blog 00:19:01 – Braiins HashPower Product 00:21:39 – Mining Decentralization 00:22:51 – Cake Wallet & Zcash Giveaway 00:24:01 – Terraria Plugin Development 00:27:44 – SideShift & Swapping 00:31:11 – Breadwallet & Node Mapping 00:33:38 – Joining Braiins as a Rust Programmer 00:36:06 – Writing the Book "Building Bitcoin in...

Summer Meng is the CEO of Bitmars: the largest distributor of Bitmain ASIC miners in Europe and North America. Often described as the ”ASIC Queen”, she is the person to contact if you need to supply a mining farm with the latest and best-performing hardware. In this episode, she talks about the challenges involved in ASIC miner distribution and her journey from simple employee to company CEO. Time stamps: 00:01:12 Summer Meng’s Background & Entry into Bitcoin Mining 00:03:41 Early Experiences & Learning in the Industry 00:05:23 Bitcoin Mining in China & the 2021 Ban 00:07:01 Impact of the Ban & Shift to Overseas Markets 00:09:40 Bitcoin Custody & Company Practi...

Chad Masterson & Charlie Plainview are the co-founders of OPNET: a protocol that brings smart contracts, DeFi & stablecoins to Bitcoin's base layer. No tokens, wrappers, or bridges are required. But how does it really work & how is it different from Omni, Counterparty, and Citrea? Time stamps: Time stamps: 00:00:36 Introducing Danny and Chad from OPNET 00:01:37 Defining OP NET and Consensus Protocols 00:03:19 Comparison to Counterparty and EVM Compatibility 00:05:39 Technical Implementation: Witness Field and Bitcoin Compliance 00:07:32 Leveraging Bitcoin’s Native Scripting 00:09:03 Problems with Meta Protocols and Off-Chain Indexers 00:12:48 Potential for DeFi and Institutional Use 00:14:07 Layer Two Limitations and Liquidity Issues 00:15:35 Scaling and High Fee En...

Kristian Csepcsar is the Chief Propaganda Officer at Braiins: the first Bitcoin mining pool and also the oldest Bitcoin company in existence. In this episode, he talks about the role that Braiins plays in the Bitcoin world (inside and outside of mining) and the moments that shaped the Proof of Work industry. Time stamps: 00:01:09 Introducing Kristian Csepcsar, Chief Propaganda Officer at Braiins 00:02:13 Brains Company Overview & Mining Book Promotion 00:03:33 Audiobooks & Free Resources 00:05:22 Mining Videos & Norway Whale Salami Story 00:07:42 Brains/Slush Pool History & Name Origin 00:10:32 Short History of Bitcoin Mining 00:10:53 Zcash Mining & Cake Wallet Giveaway 00:12:59 Brains Hardware & Braiins Dock Device 00:15:38 HashPower Marketplace...

Charlie Spears is a co-founder of Blockspace media, an organization which specializes in publishing articles and podcasts about Bitcoin mining and scaling. In this episode, we talk about the rise of AI, Bitcoin culture, and the upcoming OP_NEXT event. Time stamps: 00:01:07 – Introduction & Spook Joke 00:05:04 – Blockspace Media Origins 00:08:34 – Technical Glitches 00:11:27 – The Gwart Show 00:13:50 – Bitcoin Media Landscape 00:17:25 – Blockworks vs. Blockspace 00:19:22 – AI’s Impact on Media 00:21:07 – AI Workflow & Security 00:22:30 – Voice Cloning Risks 00:24:41 – AI Content & Authenticity 00:27:45 – AI & Bitcoin Mining 00:30:20 – AI Replacing Creative Work 00:33:02 – Charlie's Music Career & Podcasting 00:36:03 – Cake Wallet Giveaway 00:40:13 – Bitcoin Privacy & Zcash 00:41:18 – Bitcoin Culture Critique 00:47:54 – Altcoins & EVM on Bitcoin 00:51:44 – Lightning Network UX 00:58:20 – Custodial vs. Non-Custodial Lightning 01...

Time stamps: 00:00:46 Introducing Ray 00:02:05 Ray Steps Down as CEO of NoOnes & Legal Troubles Begin 00:03:10 The Arrest & Deportation in Mexico 00:06:29 US Charges & Legal Proceedings 00:11:07 Motivations Behind the Prosecution 00:17:08 Conditions of Release & Ankle Bracelet 00:20:57 NoOnes’ Status & Company Structure 00:25:35 NoOnes vs Paxful in User Base 00:28:39 Product Design Philosophy 00:36:01 Ray’s Legal Restrictions 00:37:15 Cake Wallet Giveaway Winners & Community Engagement 00:41:33 NoOnes’ Peer-to-Peer Trading Volume & Asset Breakdown 00:44:46 USDT, USDC, and Sanctions Workarounds 00:47:33 Other Crypto Developers & Political Prosecution 00:50:14 Ray’s Trial Outlook & US Citizenship 00:57:00 Judicial System & Hope for Dismissal 00:59:48 Intimidation Tactics & Test of Wealth 01:03:15 Charity, Faith, and Pascal’s Wager 01:04:05 Counter-Suing & DOJ Conviction Rates 01:06:48 Faith, Destiny, and the Story...

John Carvalho is the CEO of Synonym: the company behind the Bitkit wallet and the Pubky social tagging protocol. In this episode, he talks about the progress he's made with his products, the relevance of BIP110, and two concepts which he calls ”Bitcoin depression” and ”Lightning derangement”. Time stamps: 00:00:47 Introducing John Carvalho 00:01:42 Podcast Sponsorships & Cake Wallet Giveaway 00:03:40 Synonym Company Growth & AI Coding 00:07:10 Startup Lessons & Xotika History 00:10:26 Bitcoin Uncensored & Xotika Freedom 00:12:00 Stablecoins, Tether, and Omni 00:15:00 Bitcoin Block Space & Scaling 00:20:13 Blockchain Ecosystems & Class System 00:23:50 Forks, Scaling, and Store of Value 00:52:00 Blockstream, Core Devs, and Institutionalization 00:59:00 Bitcoin Depression & Lightning Derangement Syndrome 01:02:18 Community Fragmentation & Social D...

Mark Karpelès is the former CEO of Mt. Gox, the defunct Bitcoin exchange. Recently, he requested the Bitcoin community to hard fork the chain in order to recover 79956 BTC that was stolen from his exchange. In this episode, he explains all about it. Time stamps: 00:01:19 Introducing Mark Karpelès & His Recent Activities 00:03:29 Mark’s Entry into Bitcoin & Move to Japan 00:06:01 Acquiring Mt. Gox from Jed McCaleb in early 2011 00:08:00 Early Challenges & First Mt. Gox Hack 00:10:20 Handling the Loss & Transparency 00:13:16 Regrets & Lessons from Early Mt. Gox 00:15:09 Mt. Gox’s Rapid Growth & Regulatory Pressure 00:17:15 Rumors: Satoshi & Silk Road Allegations 00:21:16 Security, Hacking Attempts, and Ph...

Cameron Robertson first discovered Bitcoin in 2009, after reading a post on hacker website Slashdot. About a year later, he started mining and mingling with other Bitcoin enthusiasts in the Silicon Valley area. More recently, he created a product named the Burner: an affordable, NFC-based card that enables anyone to gift, save, and spend their BTC within a simple browser-based and mobile-optimized interface. In this episode, we talk about the past, present and future of the Bitcoin project: including topics such as mining, open source development culture, and the quantum threat. Get 25% discount on your Burner card purchase with promo code ”BT...

Between 2014 and 2019, Riccardo Spagni (aka Fluffy Pony) led the development and engineering efforts of the Monero privacy. But he's also been a prominent bitcoiner since 2011, who did mining and supported e-commerce. He built a solid reputation on the Bitcoin OTC trading platform, created the PayBee and Globee payment processors, and even invented OpenAlias in order to simplify the now-standardized address format. In this episode, we talk about his contributions and what he's currently up to. Time stamps: 00:01:32 – Introduction & Magical Crypto Friends Era 00:02:57 – Challenges of Producing Magical Crypto Friends 00:04:26 – Craig Wright Satire & Community Targets 00:07:59 – Early Bitcoin Community & 2011 Generation 00:08:53 – Satoshi’s Intentions & Early Bitcoi...

Colin Harper is a veteran Bitcoin journalist, who is known for the well-researched articles that he wrote for Coin Central, Bitcoin Magazine, Luxor Mining, and Blockspace Media. More recently, he became the co-host of the Blockspace Podcast. In this episode, we talk about Colin's insights into Bitcoin mining, the relevance of the recently-revealed Epstein files, and his approach to doing journalism. Read the article about this interview: https://bitcoin-takeover.com/s17-e7-colin-harper-bitcion-mining-epstein-emails-journalism/ Time stamps: 00:01:12 Reminiscing Berlin & Early Bitcoin Conferences 00:02:17 Marxism, Socialism, and Bitcoin’s Political Spectrum 00:04:00 Bitcoin’s Current State & Market Sentiment 00:06:48 Four-Year Cycle & Institutional Adoption 00:07:54 Global Macroeconomics & Liquidity Issu...

Lately, Cake Wallet has become the Swiss Army knife for privacy-preserving cryptocurrencies — a description that should be an oxymoron. CEO Vik Sharma joins the show in order to explain how the project went from only supporting Monero to branching out into Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, Decred, Nano, and now Zcash and the Lightning network. Did he betray the Monero community? Time stamps: 00:01:16 – Introducing Vik Sharma 00:02:13 – Challenges of Podcasting & Sponsorship 00:03:16 – Lightning Network Integration in Cake Wallet 00:03:49 – Lightning Network Beta & Release Plans 00:04:26 – Technical Approach to Lightning Integration 00:05:25 – Multi-Coin & Lightning Support 00:06:32 – New Cake Wallet UI Overhaul 00:08:01 – Switching Between Bitcoin and Lightning 00:09:29 – Community Reactions & Tribalism 00:10:53 – Decision-Making & Addi...

Over the last 6 months, Paul Sztorc has compiled an impressive list of inconsistencies and significant losses from the Bitcoin maximalist camp. He referred to them as ”derangements” and we cover most of them in this brutally honest wakeup call. Read Paul's article: https://www.truthcoin.info/blog/derangements/ Time stamps: 00:01:16 Introduction & Article Overview 00:02:41 Defining Derangements 00:05:31 Truth vs. Loyalty in Bitcoin Culture 00:09:55 Leadership Void & Bitcoin Core Stagnation 00:14:25 Consensus, Soft Forks, and Governance 00:17:46 Block Size Wars & Scaling Debates 00:19:11 Bitcoin Cash, Competition, and Signaling Theory 00:27:27 Bitcoin SV, Craig Wright, and Cultural Derangements 00:31:52 Lightning Network as a Sacred Cow 00:41:14 Treasury Companies & Michael Saylor 00:51:37 Layer Two...

Robin Linus, Liam Eagen, Ying Tong Lai are the co-founders of {ideal}: an initiative which recently created Argo: a garble circuits scheme which enabled 2000x efficiency gains for BitVM. The group aims to use cryptography in order to advance privacy and scalability in Bitcoin. Time stamps: 00:01:17 Introducing Liam Eagen, Robin Linus & Ying Tang Lai 00:02:17 Origin of Ideal Group & Naming 00:05:03 Funding, Investors & Bootstrapping 00:06:43 Comparison to Other Teams & Technical Progress 00:09:52 Challenges in Auditing & Implementation 00:12:10 Rapid Progress in BitVM & Garbled Circuits 00:14:37 Defining BitVM & Use Cases 00:19:24 BitVM, Soft Forks, and Bitcoin Upgrades 00:23:03 Ideal Solution for Bitcoin Upgrades 00:25:17 Simplicity, Covenants, and Script Upgrades 00:27:06 Favorite Michael...

Andrey Sabelnikov and Valeriy Pisarkov are the core devs of Zano: a privacy network which enables users to create tokens with privacy. The project's mix of Cryptonote and Zarcanum protocols can also enable private transfers of bridged BTC. In this episode, we talk about how this system works and we inquire about the tradeoffs involved. Time stamps: 00:01:51 – Introduction & Setting the Record Straight 00:02:51 – Val & Andre’s Backgrounds, CryptoNote Origins 00:03:53 – Problems with Bytecoin & Monero’s Launch 00:05:28 – Zano’s Strategic Directions & AI Security Challenges 00:08:51 – Val’s Role in Zano & Technical Evolution 00:13:45 – Network-Level Privacy Incident 00:19:15 – Proof-of-Work vs. Proof-of-Stake Privacy 00:24:11 – Zano vs. Monero: Not a Fork 00:29:22 – Monero C...

Tyler Spalding is a 2011 bitcoiner whose main focus is payments. As the co-founder and former CEO of Flexa, he has a very unique insight on the cryptocurrency industry. This episode was recorded on the road after visiting the Bear Sanctuary in Romania. 00:00:47 – Introduction & Tyler’s Visit to Romania Tyler discusses his trip to Romania, the bear sanctuary, and his passion for supporting bears globally. 00:04:11 – Background: NASA, Payments, and Early Tech Career Tyler shares his background in aerospace engineering, work at NASA, and transition into software and payments. 00:10:09 – Discovering Bitcoin & Early Involvement Tyler recounts learning about Bitcoin in 2011, reading the white paper, a...

Lately, Bruce Fenton has been on fire with his characterization of Bitcoin sellouts who put on suits in order to appeal to institutional investors. Cordially, these people are referred to as ”suitcoiners” -- and in this episode we're roasting them. Time stamps: 00:01:16 Introducing Bruce Fenton, the Wall Street guy who's turned into a cypherpunk 00:02:04 Bruce Fenton's Journey from Wall Street to Cypherpunk 00:02:36 Tokenization, Ravencoin & Bitcoin Maximalism 00:03:26 Early Bitcoin Ethos of Self-Sovereignty 00:09:53 Hal Finney’s Vision for Bitcoin-Backed Banking 00:11:25 Bruce Fenton's Senate Campaign & Political Disillusionment 00:12:19 Limits of Political Change & The Swamp 00:16:25 Generational Shifts & Aging OGs 00:18:06 Campaign Funding with Bitcoin 00:21:14 Bruce Fenton's Filibu...

Moonsettler is a bitconer who adheres to the old school cypherpunk values and believes that the best way ahead is to enable OP_CTV (BIP119) or LNHANCE. However, the biggest problem is the generalized loss of focus. If last year there seemed to be consensus that Bitcoin needs covenants to improve scalability and bring new use cases, now the landscape is rather gloomy. Even Moonsettler changed his Twitter screen name to Doomsettler, as a reflection on this status quo. 00:01:16 Welcome Moonsettler (Doomsettler) 00:02:40 Delayed Interview and Original eCash Debate 00:03:14 Why eCash (Chaumian Cash) Never Took Off 00:04:00 Criticism of Custodial Scaling Solutions 00:05:14...

Alex Chepurnoy is a cryptographer & researcher who famously wrote a Bitcoin client in Haskell in only 3600 lines of code. He is currently working on Ergo, a proof of work blockchain which improves upon Bitcoin's design in order to achieve smart contracts and DeFi. How does it work? Let's find out! Time stamps: 00:01:11 Introducing Alex Chepurnoy 00:01:51 Alex’s Bitcoin Discovery & Early Development 00:02:37 Namecoin, SmartContract.com, and Cardano Involvement 00:05:15 Satoshi Theories & Code Analysis 00:07:00 Rewriting Bitcoin & Distributed Systems Perspective 00:08:39 Consensus Protocols & Altcoin Proliferation 00:10:20 Bitcoin’s Early Appeal & Peer-to-Peer Motivation 00:14:08 Bitcoin’s Revolutionary Monetary Model 00:15:45 Staying in Crypto: Problems to Solve 00:17:19 Bitcoin as Digital Gold...

David Bailey is the chairman of Bitcoin Magazine, the organizer of the most successful series of Bitcoin conferences, and the mastermind behind the Nakamoto BTC treasury company. In this episode, we talk about his latest business dealings and the current state of the Bitcoin bull market. Time stamps: 00:01:47 Bitcoin Magazine’s Bitcoin-Only Pivot 00:02:17 Surviving 2018 and the COVID Pivot 00:04:09 Scaling Up: Conferences and Global Expansion 00:05:11 Bringing Politicians to Bitcoin 00:07:35 Trump’s Embrace of Bitcoin and Global Perception 00:09:48 Bitcoin Price Expectations and Political Impact 00:10:56 Presidential Pardons and the Lack of a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve 00:14:10 Trump Meme Coins and Industry Signals 00:17:07 Privacy, Regulation, and...

Abdel is one of the most prolific developers in the Zero Knowledge space. Since our conversation in September, he was able to accomplish so much that he requested another interview to talk about it. So what happened with ZK STARKs that is so important? Time stamps: 00:01:04 Podcast Introduction & Sponsor Acknowledgments 00:02:15 Vlad's Rant on Bitcoin Media & Podcast Landscape 00:03:24 Bitcoin Takeover Podcast Mission & Seven-Year Anniversary 00:04:39 Transition to Abdel’s Updates & ZK-STARKS 00:05:44 Abdel’s Zcash & Bitcoin Proposals 00:07:00 Comparing Bitcoin and Zcash Community Reactions 00:08:36 Altcoins as Experimentation Grounds 00:11:23 Scaling, Rollups, and Drivechains 00:13:10 Abdel’s Proposal for Native STARK Verification 00:17:19 Zcash’s TDE and Layer 2 Possibil...

Alan Szepieniec is a cryptographer & systems architect who specializes in Zero Knowledge proofs. He created Neptune Cash, a L1 network which combines ZK STARKs with Proof of Work in order to have a money system that's private, scalable & quantum resistant. Time stamps: 00:00:00 Intro & Sponsors 00:02:30 Welcome Alan Szepieniec 00:03:02 Alan's Background in Cryptography & Libertarianism 00:05:15 Path to Bitcoin & Privacy Disillusionment 00:07:30 Privacy as Essential for Fungible Money 00:09:44 Network-Level Privacy & Censorship Resistance 00:12:15 Debate on Privacy Improvements in Bitcoin 00:14:01 Scalability Trade-offs with Recursive ZK Proofs 00:17:26 Lightning Network Privacy Limitations 00:22:39 Lightning's Potential for High-Frequency Trading 00:26:41 Custodial Risks & ZK-Proven Custodians 00:31:21 Sponsor: Unstoppable Wallet 00:33:17 Sponsor: Sideshift.ai 00:34:20 ZK-STARKs Explained...

Jonathan Bier is the author of the influential best-seller "The Blocksize War: The battle over who controls Bitcoin’s protocol rules", as well as one of the most prolific and respected researchers in Bitcoin. He is also an active investor who sits on various company boards and advises projects in the space. In this episode, we talk about parallels between the Bitcoin scaling debate and the filter wars, but also highlight some debunked Satoshi Nakamoto claims. Time stamps: 00:01:11 - Introducing Jonathan Bier and Blocksize War Book 00:02:44 - Meeting BitMEX Founders and Starting Research 00:05:31 - Arthur Hayes' Blog Writing and Vision 00:07:32...

Curtis Green, better knows by OG bitcoiners as "Chronicpain" or "Flush", is a former forum moderator and website administrator of the Silk Road internet marketplace. He is a man who has mined bitcoin early enough to get scammed by Butterfly Labs, and was allegedly also the target of a bounty on assassination markets. He's seen all eras of Bitcoin, and today he seeks to get pardoned by the Trump administration. He will accept donations from community members in order to get the legal help he needs. Read Curtis Green's book, "Silk Road Takedown": https://www.amazon.com/dp/1729436889 Donate to...

Leona Hioki is the CEO, co-founder & architect of INTMAX: a ZK rollup layer 2 that focuses on private payments, scalability, and low fees. In this episode, we talk about scaling & privacy tech for Bitcoin & what we can learn from Ethereum. Time stamps: 00:01:17 -Introducing Leona 00:02:47 - Leona Hioki's Background 00:03:38 - Discussion on Past Podcasts and Zcash Pump Dance 00:05:00 - Privacy Trends in Crypto 00:05:26 - INTMAX Overview: Privacy, Scalability, Trade-offs 00:05:44 - Client-Side Validation and ZKP in INTMAX 00:08:22 - Comparison to Zcash and RGB 00:08:46 - INTMAX on Ethereum and Potential Bitcoin Integration 00:11:02 - INTMAX vs. StarkWare 00:14:15 - Stateless vs. Stateful Systems 00:15:05 - Evolution from...