Stephan Livera Podcast

Skot joins me to talk about his project to bring affordable, energy efficient, open source mining to home miners. We discuss:

• The current state of open source in bitcoin mining

• Bitaxe overview

• Why do people do this?

• Price and how to set one up

• Mining pools

• Decentralisation

Links:

• X: @skot9000

• Site: Bitaxe.org

Sponsors:

• Swan.com (code LIVERA)

• CoinKite.com (code LIVERA)

• Mempool.s...

Rusty Russell rejoins me on the show to talk about a new idea for a bitcoin soft fork that hopefully avoids some of the ‘horse trading’ dynamic that existed amongst other proposals. Listen in to learn more about the different paradigm that Rusty introduces here, so that developers can build more functionality and efficiency in, hopefully so that more people can use Bitcoin in self-custody. 

• Bitcoin Script background

• GSR ove...

Dan Gould of the PayJoin Dev Kit (sponsored by Spiral and Opensats) joins me to discuss how Bitcoin privacy could be improved with more PayJoin adoption. What’s more, it might also benefit users in consolidating their wallets or potentially even fee savings. We discuss how this could be integrated into more bitcoin wallets. 

• What is a PayJoin?
• How it helps privacy
• Other benefits in efficiency
• Downsides and trade offs
• ...

Adam Sullivan, CEO of Core Scientific joins me today as we chat about:

• Going through bankruptcy as a Bitcoin miner
• Debt financing
• Role of capital structure in mining
• What makes Core Scientific different?
• Centralisation of mining pools
• Fee dynamics going forward
• 2025 outlook on Mining

Links:

• X: @_Adam_Sullivan1
• Core Scientific: Corescientific.com

Sponsors:

• Swan.com (code LIVERA)
• CoinKit...

Rapha Zagury, CIO of Swan and Head of Swan Mining rejoins me on the show to talk about a range of topics, from Brazil’s flooding, Bitcoin Mining, Capital Structure, as well as share some insights on speaking to TradFi professionals about Bitcoin. 

Links:

• X: @alphaazeta 
• Site: Swan.com
• Site: Nakamotoportfolio.com
• Nakamoto Gauntlet: The Nakamoto Portfolio Gauntlet 

Sponsors:

• Swan.com (code LIVERA)
• Coin...

As you may know, at the recent Bitcoin++ conference, there was a ‘meeting of the minds’ and Brandon Black aka reardencode rejoins me on the show to discuss. We talk about: 

• The state of various covenant proposals
• What has shifted now in thinking
• The promise of Great Script Restoration
• Could it have bad side effects? 
• Doing good engineering

Links:

• X: @reardencode 
• Bitcoin++: btcplusplus.dev 
• Rusty’s talk:...

Miljan from Primal joins me to talk about why Bitcoiners should not sleep on Nostr. We chat:

• Why he’s bullish on nostr
• What the experience is like nowadays
• Network effects for creators and devs
• Dealing with spam and sybil
• Why Openness is the killer feature

Links:

• X: @mbraticevic
• Site: Primal.net
• Miljan’s Nostr npub: npub16c0nh3dnadzqpm76uctf5hqhe2lny344zsmpm6feee9p5rdxaa9q586nvr
• Miljan’s Nostr: miljan@pr...

Peruvian Bull, a macro writer and commentator joins me to explain what’s happening with the Japanese economy and how it all ties in with the dollar end game. We discuss: 

• The impossible trinity for Japan
• Japanese government debt
• The global JPY carry trade
• The impact on the US financial system

Links:

• X: @peruvian_bull
• Nostr: npub1xwmyzp64xx03kw9ecd7fzsj3e9dgwah6an0rdng0cc6ux4dswwjs28pyyc
• Newsletter: https://s...

Parker Lewis of Zaprite rejoins me on the show to discuss recent updates in the space and what’s happening with Zaprite and merchant adoption. 

• “Then they fight you” ?
• Chilling Effect
• Zaprite
• Getting Bitcoin Payment Rails Ready
• Gradually, Then Suddenly
• Why hope should not be lost

Links:

• X: @parkeralewis
• Site: Zaprite.com 
• Get Parker’s Book: thesifhouse.com 

Sponsors:

• Swan.com (code LIVERA)
• Coin...

A lot of people talk about Bitcoin Ossification. Today Steve Lee, Lead @ Spiral rejoins me to expand on why this is the wrong idea. We also talk about the recent situation with bitcoin mining  pool centralisation and what is driving it. 

Links:

• X: @moneyball 
• AJ Town’s ‘Slow and Steady’ post mentioned: 
• Earlier episode also mentioned: SLP433 : v2 P2P Transport Protocol for Bitcoin (BIP324) 

Sponsors:

• Swan.com (...

Jeff Booth, author, entrepreneur and founding partner of Ego Death Capital rejoins me on the show to talk about his bitcoin advocacy at various levels: 

• Speaking to politicians about bitcoin
• The system you give energy to
• “Staying and fighting” in Canada vs supporting alternatives e.g. Madeira
• ‘Coincidental’ attack on Bitcoin? 

Links:

• X: @JeffBooth
• nostr: npub1s05p3ha7en49dv8429tkk07nnfa9pcwczkf5x5qrdraqshxdj...

How do you think about investing as a bitcoiner? Preston Pysh of TIP rejoins me on the show to talk about a range of related ideas: 

• HODL vs invest in companies
• Microstrategy and other public companies
• VC and early stage investment
• Realistic investment hurdle rates
• Technical realities as bitcoin grows

Links:

• X: @PrestonPysh
• TIP: theinvestorspodcast.com
• nostr: npub1s5yq6wadwrxde4lhfs56gn64hwzuhnfa6r9mj4...

Dmitry Nedospasov is a PhD in Chip Security, also known for his hardware wallet exploits in 2018 with the wallet.fail talk. Dmitry joins me to talk about hardware security in the world of bitcoin and how it compares with hardware chip security in other domains. We discuss:

• The 2018 wallet.fail talk
• Bitcoin compared with other industries
• Realistic hardware wallet attack types
• The cost of attacking a hardware device
• Back...

Steve Lee and Matt Corallo of Spiral rejoin me on the show to talk about a range of topics. Firstly we discuss the Great Consensus Clean Up which relates to fixing some long standing bugs in Bitcoin. Secondly we talk about MEV and why it’s the wrong term, instead we should be talking about MEVil and the implications for Bitcoin miner centralisation. Finally we address the rumours of Lightning Network being dead or not useful. 

Lin...

Andrew Henderson rejoins me to discuss his story renouncing US citizenship, and whether the price was worth it. We discuss whether you should “stay and fight” as well as considerations relevant for Bitcoiners on pursuing their options in other countries. We also discuss Nomad Capitalist Live 2024, coming in KL Malaysia. Listen in to learn and stay up to date on global tax, investing and lifestyle strategies.  Links: 

• X: @nom...

Kevin Loaec of wizardsardine joins me to talk about bitcoin security and vaults. We get into a discussion about: 

• Vaults and what’s possible today 
• Timelocking and using them as part of self custody
• Inheritance scenarios
• Business use cases
• Covenant soft forks

Links:

• X: @KLoaec
• X: @Wizardsardine
• X: @revaultdev
• Site: Wizardsardine  

Sponsors:

• Swan.com (code LIVERA)
• CoinKite.com (code LIV...

Have you wondered about the role design and UX plays in Bitcoin apps? Christoph and Mogashni join me from the Bitcoin Design Community to share insights on:

• What most people are getting wrong about design
• How you can leverage design principles in your bitcoin product
• Bitcoin specific design challenges
• Types of user
• Tools available by the Bitcoin Design community

Links:

• Site: Bitcoin.design
• Site: bitcoindesig...

Peter St Onge rejoins me on the show to share some insight into how bad the US government fiscal situation is getting. We talk:

• How much debt there is and what’s next here
• The impact on the people
• Japanese interest rates rising
• Japanese economic impacts
• AI and where the jobs will come from
• Bitcoin outlook

Links:

• X: @profstonge
• Site: Profstonge.com 

Sponsors:

• Swan.com (code LIVERA)
• CoinKite.c...

Thomas Fahrer, co-founder of Apollo joins me to talk about the Bitcoin ETFs. We talk: 

• Analysing the Bitcoin ETFs
• What further institutional adoption looks like
• How much capital could flow into Bitcoin
• The Bitcoin FOMO scenario
• Disagreements on the power law model
• MSTR and Bitcoin

Links:

• X: @thomas_fahrer 
• Site: Heyapollo.com 

Sponsors:

• Swan.com (code LIVERA)
• CoinKite.com (code LIVERA)
...