TLS14: Alex Gladstein on How Bitcoin Improves Freedom, Stablecoins, and Improving the Lightning Network

Alex Gladstein is the Chief Strategy Officer of the Human Rights Foundation, where he has worked since 2007.

Alex and I spoke about how Bitcoin improves financial freedom, how Lightning extends Bitcoin’s functionality, and the ways in which Lightning still needs to improve for journalists, dissidents, and citizens under authoritarian rule.

→ The Human Rights Foundation: https://hrf.org

The Lightning Round is sponsored by Voltage, where you can ask me or my future guests questions over the Lightning Network.

→ Voltage: https://voltage.cloud?utm_source=kevinrooke&utm_medium=Youtube&utm_campaign=1mo

→ Use code KEVINROOKE to get 50% off your first month's Lightning node

At the end of every show I answer any questions listeners send in, and announce my next guest for anyone who wants to ask my next guest a question.

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Timestamps

00:00 - Intro

01:03 - Alex Gladstein Intro

04:22 - Integrating Bitcoin at the Human Rights Foundation

06:42 - How Bitcoin Improves Freedom

10:00 - What Can & Can’t Bitcoin Fix?

16:39 - Lightning’s Advantage over On-Chain Bitcoin

21:07 - Stabilized Lightning

32:32 - Who Wants Crypto Dollars?

36:17 - The Impact of Stablecoins on the US Dollar

42:48 - Exciting Bitcoin/Lightning Developments

46:25 - The Lightning Round