The Bitcoin Standard Podcast
Dr. Saifedean Ammous
Saifedean's The Bitcoin Standard Podcast is the place to discuss Bitcoin and economics from the Austrian school's perspective. Listen to the weekly saifedean.com discussion seminar, where a group of learners from all over the world discuss the website's online courses, as well as a wide variety of economic, political, and social issues, and occasionally host special guests for the discussion. The podcast also includes the most interesting interviews conducted with Saifedean on other shows.
Episodes
Mentioned books
Oct 6, 2026 • 1h 39min
346. The Bitcoin Standard 2018 Launch
A 2018 Vienna book talk explores Bitcoin as a new monetary standard and its challenge to central banking. Topics include sound money, deflation, monetary competition, Bitcoin’s fixed supply, inequality, HODLing, privacy, fractional reserves, lost coins, blockchain’s limited uses, and whether governments could compete by creating genuinely hard money.
12 snips
Sep 29, 2026 • 33min
345. Bitcoin, Mining, and Stablecoins
Saifedean Ammous, economist and author of The Bitcoin Standard, explores the dollar’s staying power amid mounting debt and fiscal risk. He examines how stablecoins could reshape banking, whether AI is changing Bitcoin mining’s energy landscape, and why halvings still influence market cycles. The discussion also weighs Bitcoin treasury companies, institutional adoption, and declining volatility.
18 snips
Sep 22, 2026 • 1h 3min
344. Can Stablecoins Save the Dollar?
Can stablecoins really rescue the dollar? The discussion explores their promise for financial inclusion, inflation protection, and preserving U.S. monetary dominance. It also examines lost seigniorage, displaced bank lending, Treasury financing, rollover risk, redemption-driven fire sales, and whether cheaper borrowing might encourage even more government spending. The finale considers how stablecoins could ultimately expand access to Bitcoin.
22 snips
Sep 15, 2026 • 29min
343. Bitcoin Electricity Consumption May Have Peaked
Could Bitcoin mining’s electricity use have reached its high-water mark? This discussion examines shrinking block rewards, falling mining incentives, and difficulty trends as clues to a potential contraction. It also explores AI’s growing competition for power and infrastructure, the role of transaction fees, and how Bitcoin might keep growing even as mining declines.
26 snips
Sep 8, 2026 • 2h 26min
342. Hardware Wallets: Security or Liability
Giacomo Zucco, a Bitcoin educator focused on self-custody and threat modeling, debates JW Weatherman, an advocate for open-source storage and generic hardware. They tackle whether hardware wallets create hidden risks, the ColdCard entropy controversy, Bitcoin Core’s code review, generic laptops, multisig design, privacy, entropy generation, and the tradeoffs between simplicity and personalized security.
30 snips
Sep 1, 2026 • 1h 44min
341. Bitcoin Custody with Ben Westgate & BTC Pavao
Ben Westgate, a Bitcoin security researcher and educator, and BTC Pavao, a Bitcoin self-custody educator, explore safer ways to store bitcoin. They discuss Bitcoin Core, old laptops, offline signing, full nodes, backups, BIP39 seed risks, multisig, custodians, and supply-chain concerns. They also tackle leverage, lending, trading, and the financial discipline required to protect a stack.
35 snips
Aug 25, 2026 • 1h 8min
340. Fiat, gold & bitcoin: Interview with Mark Moss.
Mark Moss, author and entrepreneur focused on economics, gold, and Bitcoin, joins to unpack fiat, inflation, and monetary history. He contrasts gold and Bitcoin as long-term stores. Political incentives behind chronic inflation and why stopping it is unlikely are discussed. Self-custody, the Coldcard hack, and Bitcoin’s settlement advantages over gold are also explored.
15 snips
Aug 18, 2026 • 1h 11min
339. DIY Bitcoin with HAC
Heavily Armed Clown (HAC) is a Bitcoin-focused security practitioner and DIY-storage advocate. He argues for building signing devices from generic hardware and open-source software. Topics include why generic gear can be safer than Bitcoin-only devices, what a signer actually needs to do, supply chain and randomness risks, and practical steps for DIY offline signing.
Aug 11, 2026 • 45min
338. How Gold Could Have Gone Global - The Gold Standard Audiobook, Chapter 9
A dramatic counterfactual about aviation sparks a plan to move high-value, low-weight goods. A proposal for a peer-to-peer, aircraft-based gold clearance network replaces central banks. Stories of pilots, builders and a fledgling transport corporation show how decentralized settlement could scale and reshape global trade.
40 snips
Aug 4, 2026 • 1h 29min
337. ColdCard Hack & Seedsigner with Seed
Seed, founder of the open-source SeedSigner project and former digital forensics practitioner, builds DIY Bitcoin signing tools and champions multi-sig and analog seed custody. The conversation covers the Coldcard hack, how SeedSigner works, stateless signing and entropy sources, analog backups and multisig strategies, and resilience through multi-vendor setups.
