Bitcoin Takeover Podcast

David Bailey is the owner of Bitcoin Magazine. Ideologically, he is a Bitcoin maximalist who wants everything to happen on Bitcoin and get traded for BTC. During this episode, we also mint a special ordinal... which you can buy for 3.125 BTC! Time stamps: Bitcoin Maximalism (00:04:03) Inscribing Ordinal 70326676 on Bitcoin (00:11:57) Criticism and Autonomy in Transactions (00:22:06) RGB Protocol and Color Coins (00:25:42) Bitcoin maximalism and control (00:26:02) OP_CAT and use cases (00:28:12) CTV vs. OP_CAT (00:29:35) Bitcoin fees and self-sovereignty (00:35:32) Scaling and vision alignment (00:42:39) Favorite L2 proposals and Lightning Network (00:47:55) Bitcoin Development and Layer Twos (00:51:41) BitVM and Rootstock (00:52:35) BitVM's Impact and Developer Interest (00:54:21) Layer Two Labs and Bitcoin Unity (00:57:25) Controversy and Character Assassination (01:00:38) Tether and Bitfinex (01:07:36) Liquid and Sidechain Adoption (01:12:36) Permissionless Transactions and Trust Minimization (01:15:20) Maximalist Support for Software They Didn’t Test (01:16:48)
 The Cult of Satoshi (01:21:29)
 Use Cases for Bitcoin (01:22:49)
 The Evolution of Bitcoin Conferences (01:23:57)
 Building a Global Bitcoin Community (01:25:13)
 Importance of Diverse Ideas (01:26:23)
 Hyperbitcoinization Mission (01:27:41)
 Political Dimensions of Conferences (01:28:19)
 Navigating Speaker Boycotts (01:29:24)
 Community Engagement and Perspectives (01:30:10) Maintaining Values in Bitcoin (01:31:12)
 Nature of Bitcoin's Value (01:36:20) Block Size Debate (01:38:22)
 Future of Bitcoin Scaling (01:39:58)
 Understanding Perspectives (01:41:20)
 Shared Cancel Culture Experience (01:42:12) Advocating for Ross Ulbricht (01:43:08)
 Closing Remarks (01:44:06)

Aaron Day has been a bitcoiner since 2012 – and in the aftermath of the scaling wars, he decided to support the big block camp due to ideological reasons. Today, Aaron is concerned that adoption might not catch up with the rise of CBDCs. Time stamps: Aaron Day’s Work (00:00:54) Defining Central Bank Digital Currency (00:02:04) Comparison of CBDC with Existing Banking System (00:03:51) Historical and International Perspectives on Monetary Control (00:08:32) Globalization and CBDCs (00:11:21) Potential for Competition and Surveillance (00:12:31) Dystopian Aspects of CBDC Pilots (00:17:07) Freedom vs. Tyranny in Digital Space (00:19:25) Bitcoin's Role in CBDC Environment (00:22:09) The shift from digital cash to digital gold (00:23:34) The impact of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) (00:24:43) Concerns about Bitcoin's decentralization and scalability (00:25:49) The history and motivations behind Bitcoin development (00:26:54) Challenges in mainstream adoption and perception of Bitcoin (00:27:02) The role of Bitcoin in a changing financial landscape (00:28:03) The narrative shift and its impact on public awareness (00:29:17) Reflection on the impact of the narrative shift in Bitcoin and its implications on public awareness and understanding of cryptocurrency. The potential threat to peer-to-peer commerce (00:30:13) The evolving landscape of cryptocurrency and its implications (00:31:20) The impact of blockchain analysis and privacy concerns (00:32:38) The potential for controlled demolition of the fiat system (00:45:55) The need for mass adoption of peer-to-peer digital currency (00:48:07) Bitcoin's decline in comparison to traditional financial systems (00:49:07) Challenges and limitations of onboarding Bitcoin as cash (00:51:31) The urgency to stop digital tyranny (00:53:25) Comparison of gold, silver, and crypto as mediums of exchange (00:55:10) Considerations for resilient cryptocurrency options (00:57:25) Warning against Bitcoin ETFs and the potential for confiscation (01:02:29) Promotion of self-custody and privacy solutions (01:05:57) Concerns about privacy and blockchain analysis in Bitcoin (01:08:01) The need to stop fiat to prevent CBDC dominance (01:09:46) The government's halt with respect to fiat currency (01:11:13) Awakening and new audience of people (01:12:27) Religious concerns and distrust of CBDCs (01:13:22) Developing parallel economies (01:14:19) Bitcoin Cash as a potential CBDC (01:15:53) Global pursuit of CBDCs (01:17:01) Scalability and decentralization (01:23:33) Privacy and running a node (01:28:00) Challenges with Bitcoin as an alternative to CBDCs (01:30:13) Value proposition of Bitcoin (01:33:11) Bitcoin's Censorship Resistance (01:34:38) Bitcoin's History and Chain Analysis (01:35:44) Legal Liability and Bitcoin Devs (01:36:41) Censorship Resistance and Transaction Validations (01:41:03) Impact of CBDCs on Bitcoin's Usefulness (01:42:25) Bitcoin's Potential and Sidechains (01:45:40) Blockchain Applications and Censorship Resistance (01:48:56) Threat of CBDCs and Digital Tyranny (01:51:33) Short-Term Solution and Self-Custody (01:53:04) Bitcoin's Scalability and CBDC Competition (01:55:36) Advocacy and Resources (01:58:12)

Ray Youssef is the CEO of NoOnes, a P2P marketplace which enables people from the Global South to exchange bitcoin for gift cards or local currencies. As he describes it, NoOnes is the platform where "everyone eats" – meaning that all parties make advantageous trades that help them feed themselves and their families. Consequently, Ray is an advocate of free market money who agrees with Roger Ver on some points. In this episode, he explains what those points are and why he believes Bitcoin was truly hijacked.

Charlie Lee is the creator of Litecoin and the current managing director of the Litecoin Foundation. Some may also remember him as Engineering Director at Coinbase. But very notably, Charlie Lee is one of the earliest believers in the power of the Lightning Network and an investor in Lightning Labs. I've decided to invite Charlie on the Bitcoin Takeover podcast for the third time in order to ask him a simple yet puzzling question: how come Litecoin is still successful and thrives in a world where the Lightning Network exists and offers instant transactions on Bitcoin? Furthermore, I tried to figure out what it is that makes Litecoin successful 13 years on and how it can support Bitcoin with scaling.

Polish bitcoiner & libertarian Tomek Kolodziejczuk is co-organizing the 2nd annual Bitcoin Film Fest. In 2024, the event happens at the same time as the European Halving Party. In this episode, we talk about Bitcoin-related art, the current state of cinema, and why the halving (or halvening?) is such a major event.

Amaury Séchet is the developer who forked Bitcoin to create Bitcoin Cash in August 2017. A year later, he became one of the first people to find out about the inflation bug in Bitcoin – yet he chose to not exploit it and collaborate with the Bitcoin Core devs instead. Deadalnix was also one of the first large blockers to figure out that Craig Wright is not Satoshi. On the other hand, he appears to be a fan of dev taxes. Why did he not destroy Bitcoin? Why do large blockers keep on creating forks? How was Craig Wright exposed among the big blocker circles? In this episode, we learn more about this lesser known part of Bitcoin history.

Adam Soltys is a Canadian bitcoiner, best known for his work on Raretoshi – a marketplace for Liquid network NFTs. Cole is a marketer who likes the Lightning network. Together, they built Coinos: a custodial & newbie-friendly Lightning wallet.

Roger Ver, a prominent advocate and entrepreneur in the Bitcoin community, reflects on his seven-year journey through Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash. He debates financial freedom versus large entity influence, and critiques Bitcoin's shift from a payment method to a store of value. The conversation dives into the challenges of the Lightning Network and its centralization issues, contrasting it with privacy-focused strategies like Cash Fusion. Ver shares anecdotes from Bitcoin's chaotic past and highlights continuing divisions in the community, urging for open dialogue and adaptation.

Thanks to the efforts of CommerceBlock CEO Nicholas Gregory and CTO Tom Trevethan, Statechains are now a reality on the MercuryLayer. Originally designed by Ruben Somsen, Statechains serve the purpose of transferring ownership of bitcoins in a private, scalable, and affordable environment. However, the original Statechain design requires the ANYPREVOUT soft fork – something Bitcoin didn't get. But thanks to the efforts of Nicholas Gregory and Thomas Trevethan, MercuryLayer works around the limitations to make Statechains happen without the need for a soft fork.

Bryan Bishop is a computer programmer who currently moderates the Bitcoin-dev mailing list and considers a position as BIP editor. In this episode, he talks about his work in Bitcoin, his Webcash experiment, and why he is an advocate of biokaching.