Bitcoin Audible

"The internet assumed NOTHING and it won because it had the basic, robust, open building blocks upon which all the innovation actually occurred. The same thing has happened with Bitcoin over the last 15 years and is now starting to happen with Nostr.

And it’s right on time, because the gateways to the internet have centralized to such a degree that the very topography of the web is changing. Access to this open bazaar is being...

"As we discussed in Entering the Bitcoin Renaissance, our last edition, Lightning Labs CEO and Co-Founder Elizabeth Stark told The Block, “a major narrative of the next cycle will be the bitcoin renaissance, and it has already begun in full swing.” Only a few months later, and that is proving to be quite prescient!"

~Ryan Gentry

Today we dive into a piece from Lightning Labs, "The Bitcoin Renaissance: How Lightn...

"What are we actually about? It's to an extent an open question. It's not like the Cypherpunks knew at all. It's part of our job to continue to try and figure it out. In a way we've been given this Arthurian sword or something. This very powerful thing. And so it's like, what are we going to do with it? I think that's a big part of our homework."

~ Tuur Demeester

Tuur Demeester joins us to da...

"I'm a Bitcoin skeptic. I'm not buying Bitcoin in 2024, even if it goes back to its recent all-time highs, or higher. Here's why."

~ Ben Gran

Ben breaks down his view of Bitcoin and why he cannot see or understand any reason it would go higher. Why he doesn't invest in things that don't produce anything, because this is antithetical to investment. Why he doesn't see how something that has no p...

"If you care about your...country, read Ludwig von Mises and the six lessons of the Austrian economic school."

~ Renato Moicano

With a surge in interest thanks the UFC fighter Renato Moicano, Mises's Six Lessons is suddenly in the popular lexicon. After knocking out his opponent he took to the mic to share his love of freedom, and the critical importance in understanding Austrian economics. Is the tide of freedom...

Many people make the serious miscalculation, that if the CPI isn't too high, then printing money isn't a problem and doesn't really cost them anything. This couldn't be further from the truth. All it means is that the cost is just that much harder to see. But if you want to look at something that is truly dominated by the fiat culture and incentives of the money, there is no better example, than finance. This is whe...

"That dogma was necessary — without it the people who have built this ecosystem into what it is today wouldn’t have had the motivation to do so. Without that dogma, those people would not have had customers and users to build anything for in the first place. It was the foundation of everything we have around us today.

Now the inevitable is happening: the foundation is cracking."

~ Shinobi

Guy Swan delves into an arti...

"On the face of it, Bitcoin’s existence seems to violate Mises’s theorem, unless a preceding non-monetary use can be demonstrated. That is, Bitcoin would have to be first valued for its direct utility before it could hold indirect exchange value. So have the criteria been met, or does Bitcoin violate the theorem?" - Emile Phaneuf

You've inevitably come across the argument that Bitcoin violates Mises's Regress...

"Hedgehog uses relative time locks. So that if they don't have to worry about closing that channel with a relative time lock, it's whenever you do close the channel, now you've got 2016 blocks to sweep the money using the pre-image. Otherwise I can sweep it after those 2016 blocks go by... And because it only uses relative time locks, it's much more delay tolerant... In the Lightning Network today, you've g...

"It's going up forever, Laura."

~ Michael Saylor

I know to many people that sounds crazy, and I can still see in my mind why it sounds crazy. Today, I'm going to make the argument for why it isn't crazy, but both natural and intuitive. Also, why it *doesn't* mean what you are probably picturing in your head. I'm going to make the case today, and I hope that you walk away realizing that this isn...

"We know the law is unconstitutional.

FinCEN knows the law is unconstitutional.

FinCEN knows we know the law is unconstitutional.

And yet we're supposed to pretend like nothing happened and comply with an illegal law."

~ Jameson Lopp

What do we do when a regulatory agency continues to enforce an illegal law against a judicial verdict? Jameson Lopp explores the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA), revealing how it...

"You have to decide how to move forward. You have to decide what game you want to play; how much responsibility you are willing to shoulder. Do you want to stay stuck in the machine? A machine that uses and abuses you? A machine that feeds itself by extracting and devouring your time, attention, and value? Or do you have the courage to take control of your wealth, health, thoughts, and speech?"

~ DerGigi

Free speech ...

Guy Swann and Preston Pysh explore the dramatic shifts in global finance and the pivotal role of Bitcoin amidst rising inflation and the banking sector's vulnerabilities. They discuss how Bitcoin's growing influence could recalibrate financial power dynamics, offering a stark contrast to traditional economic mechanisms prone to manipulation and control.

How might Bitcoin's ascent challenge the existing financial order a...

Fiat money has a collection of malincentives and consequences for the degrading and rotting of society. As we covered in the first part of this series, it leads to mindless consumerism and a more materialist culture. As we continue, I want to cover something else that it does by stealing the value of our savings which is our bet on the future health and capacity of society to provide for us. What happens when we are forced to bet a...

"The mechanisms enforcing this modern censorship are not confined to private sectors or individual platforms but are significantly directed and influenced by the U.S. government itself. This intertwining of state powers with censorship activities marks a troubling departure from traditional American values, where free speech has been held sacred."

~ Dr. Joseph Mercola

The troubling and dangerous emergence of a modern...

"As far as I'm concerned, there's no obvious increased danger from the CCP having control over our access or our information or even modifying the algorithm, than it is the alphabets of the world or the METAs of the world or the CIA or the FBI's of the world, like these people... as far as I'm concerned, the United States federal government is way more of an existential threat to me than the CCP. I'm domici...

"In a system that depends on irresponsible government spending (especially for perpetual war) and fiat printing to cover that irresponsibility, alarm bells cannot be allowed to work. There must be no pure price signals.

~ MacroScope

In "Bitter Opposition to Bitcoin," the episode delves into the reasons behind policymakers' aversion to Bitcoin, particularly the prospect of a Bitcoin ETF. What if the antagonis...

"Bitcoin will probably crash again but it is neither a Ponzi scheme nor a bubble – it’s something far worse: It is an inherently secure, tightly-controlled asset with a regulated supply, and is therefore a subversion to the whole basis of free-market financial capitalism."

~ Alan Kohler

What if Bitcoin is actually much worse than a Ponzi scheme? What if it's both here to stay, but also a total subversion to the v...