Bitcoin Takeover Podcast

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 Bitcoin Culture

00:13:00 – Technical Openness & Developer Culture

00:16:34 – Toxicity, Bag Bias, and Gloria Zhao Incident

00:22:27 – Ordinals, Spam, and Censorship Debates

00:29:24 – Privacy, Permissionlessness, and Miner Censorship

00:31:53 – Technical Flaws of Filtering & Forking Lessons

00:41:04 – Bitcoin Cash, Forks, and Movement Unity

00:45:57 – Economic Dogma vs. Technical Reality

00:47:40 – Layer 2, Lightning, and Privacy Limitations

00:49:38 – Magic Wand: Ideal Bitcoin Privacy Upgrades

00:52:31 – ETFs, Custodians, and Institutional Privacy

00:55:00 – Sponsor Plugs & Humanitarian Use Cases

01:02:36 – Samourai Wallet, Toxic Change, and Monero Swaps

01:06:39 – Privacy Coin Market Trends & Bandwagoning

01:12:13 – AI, Privacy, and Global South Crypto Use

01:18:01 – Tron, Justin Sun, and Stablecoin Adoption

01:22:33 – Bitcoin’s Changing Role: Store of Value vs. Money

01:26:15 – MoneroTopia & Legal Restrictions

01:31:50 – Early Bitcoin Support & The Most Serene Republic

01:37:25 – Philosophical Roots of Bitcoin Maximalism

01:39:07 – Personal Stories, Watches, and Fashion

01:43:02 – Weight Loss & Life Updates

01:45:08 – Monero Criticism & Inflation Debate

01:47:29 – Ethereum, Zcash, and Privacy by Default

01:55:20 – Zcash’s Purpose and Venture Funding

02:01:30 – Tari, Zano, and Final Thoughts

02:04:17 – Outro & Future Interviews

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 Issues

00:09:43 Quantum Computing Threats & Upcoming OP_NEXT Conference

00:11:52 Exponential Technologies & Market Perception

00:13:38 Braiins BMM & Hashpower

00:15:06 Cloud Mining & Hash Power Marketplace

00:17:33 Mining Revenue, Hash Price, and Market Trends

00:18:20 Block Space Podcast Evolution & US Mining Shift

00:20:20 US Power Grid, Renewables, and Mining Economics

00:24:49 Public Miners, Shareholder Duties, and ASIC Depreciation

00:27:49 Mining Revenue, Ordinals, and Layer 2s

00:38:41 Stablecoins, Bitcoin’s Use Case, and Payments

00:45:42 Paper Bitcoin Summer & Treasury Companies

00:48:04 Treasury Company Capital Structures & Market Impact

00:58:08 Michael Saylor, Leverage, and Market Psychology

01:03:38 Epstein Files, Bitcoin Developers, and MIT Media Lab

01:16:51 Epstein, Block Size Wars, and Regulatory Influence

01:19:48 Closing Remarks & Podcast Plugs

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 & Adding Coins

00:12:47 – In-House Development Philosophy

00:14:00 – Zcash Integration Process

00:15:13 – Wallet Features: Node Connections & Privacy

00:16:37 – User Experience & Privacy Features

00:19:04 – Swap Providers & Tor Support

00:21:08 – Cake Pay: Gift Cards & Crypto Payments

00:22:25 – Gift Card Use Cases & Community Reception

00:24:19 – Payment Statistics & 80% Monero Dominance

00:25:52 – Zcash Community Skepticism & Open Source Trust

00:26:43 – Tribalism, Criticism, and Community Culture

00:36:13 – History of Zcash Integration & Domain Sales

00:42:11 – Exchange Listings & Monero Market Decentralization

01:03:44 – Bitcoin Security Budget & Multi-Coin World

01:06:58 – Monero Community Culture & Early Bitcoin Parallels

01:18:13 – Litecoin, Dogecoin, and Altcoin Experimentation

01:25:25 – Cake Wallet’s Growth & Monero Ecosystem

01:30:43 – Concerns About Cake's Market Dominance in Monero

01:33:24 – Upcoming Features: Lightning, Binance Chain, Desktop Focus

01:36:57 – Traditional Finance Integration & Future Plans

01:39:37 – AI in Wallets & User Suggestions

01:41:56 – Closing Remarks & Community Engagement

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 Labs & Scaling Solutions
00:54:16 Drivechain, Quantum Resistance, and L2 Competition
01:07:24 Soft Forks, BIP Process, and Development Paralysis
01:11:41 Ordinals, NFTs, and Filtering Debates
01:22:36 Attacks on Developers & Community Toxicity
01:25:24 CTV, Jeremy Rubin, and Soft Fork Misunderstandings
01:41:24 Ethereum, Altcoins, and Market Competition
01:51:16 Mining, Miners’ Apathy, and Industry Scaling
02:03:09 Libbitcoin vs. Bitcoin Core
02:17:46 Final Rotation & Store of Value vs. Medium of Exchange
02:35:08 Non-Mined L2s, Rollups, and Miner Incentives
02:52:05 Purity Tests & Cancel Culture in Bitcoin
03:08:35 SegWit Discount & Taproot Critique
03:26:23 Address Formats, BIP47, and UX Derangements
03:36:50 Silent Payments, BIP47 & Privacy Features
03:55:05 Bitcoin Maximalism, Post-Maximalism, and Ideology
03:57:47 Game Theory, Politics, and Drivechain Criticism
04:00:14 Conclusion & Final Thoughts

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 Saylor Analogies & Podcast Ads

00:32:47 Bitcoin Maximalism, ETFs, and Institutionalization

00:37:17 Privacy, Censorship Resistance, and Fungibility

00:40:06 Blockchain Analysis & Privacy Risks

00:41:30 Shielded Client-Side Validation & Privacy Protocols

00:45:57 Zcash, Private Pools, and Inflation Bugs

00:51:45 Soft Forks vs. Embedded Consensus for Privacy

01:01:34 Quantum Computing Threats & Post-Quantum Cryptography

01:17:37 Freezing Satoshi’s Coins & UTXO Expiry

01:23:32 Block Space Demand, Ordinals, and Collectibles

01:25:44 Rollups, Block Space, and Bitcoin Culture

01:33:23 Argo: The New Garbling Scheme

01:38:05 Monero, Privacy Coins, and Community Ethos

01:40:25 Future Vision for Bitcoin

01:42:38 STARKs, SNARKs, and Zero-Knowledge Proofs

01:50:08 Conferences, Community, and Outreach

01:58:11 Ideal Project Status, Mainnet, and Naming

02:00:05 Closing Remarks & How to Follow {ideal}