Bitcoin Takeover Podcast

This episode was recorded while driving to BitDevs in Atlanta. The car belongs to Art (at least 1/3 of it) and is the first vehicle ever bought for bitcoin in 2013: a 2011 Toyota Prius, for which the Mycelium wallet founder paid 1000 BTC. We talk about cars, Bitcoin development, why the medium of exchange side of BTC matters, and how we can achieve privacy and scalability. Other people join too towards the end: Ekrem Bal from Citrea, Christian from Alpen Labs, Paul Sztorc from LayerTwo Labs, and Rob Hamilton from Anchor Watch.

The second day of TABConf 8, live from Atlanta. Ekrem Bal talks Citrea privacy, Kevin Loaec explains Liana wallet, Spaces Protocol introduces BTC handles, Bitcoin credit unions enter the scene, Peter Todd unboxes his Zcash ceremony laptop 10 years later. Time stamps: 0:00 Stream warm-up 2:29 Ekrem Bal: Citrea pivots to privacy with Crest 7:22 Privacy and scalability on Citrea 11:30 Privacy as protection from physical attacks 16:00 Lessons from almost a year on mainnet 19:00 User feedback and the Clementine web app 20:13 Alpen, garbled circuits and Clementine v2 21:33 Next use cases: lending, vaults and agent spending limits 22:51 Making Citrea post-quantum 26:21 Great Script Restoration and trust assumptions 29:29 OP...

Live from TABConf 8 in Atlanta: Paul Sztorc demos a quantum-resistant soft fork, Christopher Allen on Blockchain Commons, Michael Tidwell on TABConf, plus Andre Beganski, Alex Lewin, Janusz and Will on their work in the space. Recorded on Wednesday, October 14th 2026. Time stamps: 0:00 Stream warm-up 1:55 Welcome to Bitcoin Takeover at TABConf 8 with Paul Sztorc 2:30 CUSF 2 demo: quantum-resistant signatures, OP_VAULT, OP_CTV & OP_CAT 4:30 Sweeping coins into a quantum-resistant UTXO with BitWindow 5:05 Why miners will never run it 5:52 Is quantum FUD? Pascal's Wager & Saylor 7:50 Bitcoin's overconfidence & the competition 8:41 How altcoins took Bitcoin's use cases 10:17 Greg Maxwell & the belief in Bitcoin's infallibility 11:39...

After seven years of being in development, Tari finally launched in 2025. Why did it take so long and how many of the initial promises were delivered? Naveen Jain, Mr. Fox & Marguerite de Courcelle join the show to offer their best answers. 0:00 - Intro 0:47 - Welcome to S17 E45: Naveen, Mr. Fox & Marguerite 3:02 - What Is Tari? Mimblewimble, Four Mining Lanes & the Oodle 5:21 - Can Tari Compete With Solana? 6:32 - Meme Coins vs. Real Businesses 8:22 - The Ticketmaster Killer That Wasn't 9:18 - Big Neon, the Pandemic & the Spotify Exit 11:20 - How Dependent Is Tari on Monero's Hashrate? 12:26 - Why Four Mining...

Marc De Mesel talks about on selling BTC for Bitcoin Cash in 2017, funding BCH devs for years, why BCH failed despite being the best big block version of Bitcoin, what's in his privacy coin basket, his Tesla investment & having multiple girlfriends. 0:00 - Intro 0:47 - Welcome: Marc De Mesel, the Guardian Angel of Bitcoin Cash 2:01 - The Trade: Selling BTC for BCH in August 2017 5:00 - $300 Then vs. $300 Now: The Inflation Math 7:39 - From Investor to Benefactor: Funding BCH Development 8:49 - Amaury's IFP: Treasury Model or Dev Tax? 11:54 - Mike Hearn's Prophecy & the Flipstarter Model 14:21 - Bitcoin XT, Bitcoin Classic & the Article...

The 2019 conversation with fellow crypto journalist colleague Omar Faridi is now remastered: featuring Bitcoin in Pakistan, the Petro scam, brain drain economics, and why nothing is absolutely good or bad. Time stamps: 0:00 - Intro 0:46 - Remaster Notes: The Crypto Insider Colleague 2:29 - Somewhat Jealous of the Five-Article Days 4:01 - Sponsor Shoutout: Helen's Pizza in Jersey City 5:25 - The Original Recording: January 2019 6:12 - Omar Faridi: Crypto Journalist in Pakistan 7:47 - The State of Bitcoin in Pakistan 9:02 - Misinformation, Education & the $400 Salary 10:05 - The Exchange the State Bank Shut Down 11:08 - Potcoin: Pakistan's Own Cryptocurrency ($34,000 Market Cap) 11:53 - The School Owner Who...

BitGo CEO Mike Belshe returns after 20 months to discuss the Clarity Act, BitGo's IPO and retail launch, quantum-resistant wallets, AI code auditing, and what changed since we last spoke in S16 E1. Time stamps: 0:00 - Intro 0:54 - Welcome to S17 E43: Mike Belshe Returns 1:26 - The White House Visit & the Clarity Act Vote 2:35 - Why Wall Street Needs the Clarity Act 4:43 - Martin Gruenberg, Operation Chokepoint & the Vulnerability Window 7:00 - Does Clarity Affect Bitcoin Payments? 7:18 - The Three Camps Inside Every Bank 09:12 - Will the Next Administration Rug Pull Crypto? 10:15 - Executive Orders vs. Legislation 11:08 - Larry Fink: "Everything Is...

Ethereum Classic veteran Bob Summerwill retells the DAO hack from inside the Foundation, explains why forks are features, and shares advice for Paul Sztorc's ecash launch, plus FIFA stories and lost ETH. Time stamps: 00:47 - Welcome to S17 E42: Fork Season Begins 01:26 - Bob Summerwill & the DAO Hack Origin Story 03:11 - Slock.it, Smart Locks & the First DAO 07:03 - Child DAOs and the "Risk-Free" Pitch 10:04 - Bob's Reservations: Legal Liability & Randos Voting With Money 13:27 - The Reentrancy Bug: 14% of the Supply Drained 16:14 - Code Is Law vs. Bailout: The Great Schism 19:42 - Hoskinson's "Two Ethereums From the Start" 26:25 - "Can...

The January 2019 Zack Voell crossover (he was hosting The Coin Pod) is now remastered: featuring opt-in money, gridlock as a feature, FDR's gold grab, Russia rumors & dating as a Bitcoiner in NYC. The audio has been enhanced too! Time stamps: 0:00 - Intro 0:46 - Remaster Notes: This Show Was Almost Called "Bitcoin & Politics" 2:12 - Sponsor Shoutout: Helen's Pizza in Jersey City 3:30 - The Crossover Episode Zack Never Published 4:41 - The Original Recording: January 2019 5:42 - Bitcoin as a Tool of International Affairs 7:49 - Bitcoin Obituaries, Silk Road Curiosity & Getting Rekt 11:39 - The Opt-In Economy: Voting With Your Money 13:26 - "You Only Ever...

Vik Sharma is best known as the CEO of Cake Wallet. But lately, he's built two new projects: a Signal fork with BTC tipping called Radar, and a perpetual trading app named Arbiter. In this episode, he explains how the AI revolution speeds up development. Time stamps: 0:00 - Intro 1:18 - Vik Sharma Returns: Two New Products in Seven Months 1:41 - Radar: A Signal Fork with Bitcoin Lightning Built In 3:18 - How Radar Works: Signal Servers, Monthly Donations & Linked Devices 5:21 - Why Signal Over Telegram 6:36 - Why Lightning Over Monero 8:19 - Stablecoins for Normies: The Venmo-ification of Bitcoin 10:33 - Spark, Breez...

Prof. Richard Werner is one of the best known economists in the world. Amir Taaki is one of the most famous cryptographers and cypherpunks of his generation. Together, they join forces to defeat centra planning & stop the rise of CBDCs. Time stamps: 0:00 - Intro: A Crossover Panel at Mallorca Blockchain Days 2:02 - Werner's Paradigm: Why Mainstream Economics Is Charlatanism 5:52 - David Ricardo, Karl Marx & the Single Central Bank Dream 7:02 - Scientific Economics: The German Historical School & East Asia 9:25 - The Subsidiarity Principle: Lessons from the Prussian Army 12:46 - Decentralization in Money: 25,000 Local Banks 15:10 - Europe in Decline: Germany's Negative Growth...

Recorded in January 2019 and published alongside the rest of the Bitcoin Takeover Podcast Season 1 episodes in February 2019, this interview with John Carvalho is one of the show's early hits and a statement that this initiative is able to feature unique insights from popular bitcoiners. The remastered version features enhanced audio, with some extra EQ and compression. Special thanks to Helen's Pizza for sponsoring this initiative! Time stamps: 0:00 - Intro: Why This Episode Matters 4:16 - Welcome: John Carvalho, the Bitcoin Error Log 5:17 - Bitcoin Politics and the Early Days 6:39 - The Bitcoin Foundation: Ego Platform or Useful Body? 8:53 - First Contact...

Donald Hugh McIntyre passed in 2025, but is remembered as one of the most insightful polymaths... while his blog Etherplan lives on. The episode came out in the first week of February 2019, ran two hours, and set the genetic code for Bitcoin Takeover podcast. Time stamps: 00:02:45 – Introduction: who is Donald McIntyre 00:04:49 – Was Bitcoin inevitable? 00:06:29 – 10,000 years of top-down structures vs 3.5 million years of evolution 00:08:27 – Cypherpunks: Chaum, Tim May, Nick Szabo 00:09:43 – The ancient desire for unconfiscatable money 00:11:55 – Bitcoin as a bottom-up system 00:12:39 – Living in a dual world: banks vs private keys 00:15:02 – Trusted third parties are security holes 00:16:40 – Nick Szabo's social scalability explained 00:18:27 – Why banking excludes: th...

Kurt Wuckert Jr. is best known for his work at Gorilla Pool and CoinGeek. In this interview, he explains why BSV formed from BCH, what are the biggest differences between the two versions of big block Bitcoin, and why he believes he found Satoshi Nakamoto. 00:49 – The Cake Wallet contest explained 01:22 – Who is Kurt Wuckert Jr? Print shop, 2012, and the making of a big blocker 02:07 – The OP_RETURN reduction that killed his tokenization project 03:28 – The Hodlonaut photo controversy in Oslo: Kurt's side of the story 07:02 – Vlad on the fallout: friendship, slander, and psychological damage 09:21 – The handshake Hodlonaut refused, and Kurt's public apology 12:0...

Keagan McClellan (Keags) co-founded Start9 Labs, worked on Sapio with Jeremy Rubin at Judica during the CTV saga, spent time at Lightning Labs maintaining LND, and is now building BTC Verified, a formal specification and verification project for Bitcoin's consensus rules written in Lean 4. He is also a self-described member of Bitcoin's "progressive wing" who nonetheless defends the rising bar for consensus changes, a pluralist who spends all his working hours on Bitcoin, and a security thinker who refused to dunk on Coldcard even while sitting across from someone who very much wanted him to. Time stamps: 00:00 – Intro and sound ch...

n August 2026, eCash (ECX) comes out in its alpha phase: leading up to a final complete rollout on October 31st 2026, Bitcoin's 18th birthday. To better explain how this process will take place and why every bitcoiner should try BIP300 this Halloween, Paul Sztorc joins the show for a record-breaking 11th time! Time stamps: 00:01:17 – Welcome: Paul Sztorc for the 11th time, a new record 00:01:42 – Four months since the hard fork announcement 00:02:00 – The three phase rollout: alpha, beta, October 31st mainnet 00:02:25 – Why the launch was delayed: summer, Coldcard hack, BIP 110 00:03:04 – Practice runs: 1,000 test coins convert to 10 real eCash 00:03:55 – Alpha & beta as successors to the drive...

I met Yonatan Sompolinsky in Romania during his summer holiday, so we decided to do a roadtrip interview about covenants, the state of Kaspa development, why intents are more interesting than smart contracts & stag hunts. 00:00:54 – Intro: a road trip with Yonatan Sompolinsky 00:01:50 – Life since S16 E41: Oxford Union & the state of Kaspa 00:02:53 – Kaspa shipped covenants while Bitcoin debates OP_CAT 00:04:24 – Sequencing commitments & based apps explained 00:06:48 – Why OP_CAT alone can't do censorship-resistant based rollups 00:07:21 – BitVM & optimistic vs optimistically verified rollups 00:08:05 – ZK was born for privacy but lives for scaling 00:09:18 – "For the record, I'm very bearish on rollups" 00:12:27 – Ethereum quietly abandons the L2 roadmap 00...

Vinny Lingham is a Bitcoin OG who pioneered gift card payments in 2012 with Gyft, served on the board of the Bitcoin Foundation, spearheaded blockchain identity verification with CIvic, and in more recent years moved on to managing risk with Praxos Capital. Thanks to some of his accurate price predictions, Vinny has also received the nickname "The Oracle". In this episode, we talk about his Bitcoin journey and how his views have evolved over the last 14 years. Time stamps: 00:01:06 Intro & sponsors: Vinny Lingham, 15 years in Bitcoin 00:02:04 Gyft: a dozen companies and one gift card problem 00:02:26 Chargebacks, stolen cards & getting attacked by...

Cory Klippsten is the CEO of Swan Bitcoin, the promoter and former adviser of the Sequans BTC treasury, and also a big advocate for bitcoin-only maximalism. In this episode, we catch up on what's been going on over the last year in Bitcoin. Time stamps: 00:01:59 – The challenges and failures of leveraged Bitcoin equity strategies in the U.S., referencing companies like Sequans, Strike, and Strategy. 00:04:48 – Swan and the relaunch of "Bitcoin Cafe," a daily show that started on Clubhouse and later moved to Twitter. 00:05:48 – Cory introduces his new framework for understanding Bitcoin adoption, inspired by recent government actions, and frames it as...

Ever since he first received his first bitcoin in 2013, Joël Valenzuela has been on a quest to use free market electronic cash to pay for everything. Today, he is still unbanked and looking for ways to make instant payments without a bank account. He is best known for working for the DASH cryptocurrency project. But over the years, he's collaborated with plenty of other projects (mostly those related with private payments) and he possesses a wealth of knowledge in terms of adoption, everyday use as money, and user experience. Since Joël practices what he preaches and lives without fi...

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...