The Peter McCormack Show

Location: Remotely Date: Tuesday 27th July Project: lynalden.com Role: Macroeconomist Nassim Taleb is a well-regarded author and statistician and one-time bitcoin bull who has since turned critic, claiming that it "can be neither a long or short term store of value" and that "its expected value is no higher than 0." Taleb recently wrote a black paper criticising bitcoin's ability to function as a store of value, questioning its ability to protect against oppressive governments and claiming bitcoins distribution is unfair.  Several key points in the paper were without merit, and it led to bitcoiners questioning whether the article is Taleb being intellectually dishonest or ignorant. In this interview, I talk to Lyn Alden, a macroeconomist and investment strategist. We break down Nassim Taleb's "Bitcoin Black Paper" and discuss his misconceptions and whether it offers any valid criticisms.

Location: Remotely Date: Monday 19th July Project: Plan B Passport Role: Founder Bitcoin and libertarianism go hand in hand. As such, avoiding tax and limiting reliance on the government is a significant goal for many bitcoiners. Plan B Passport, a company set up with bitcoiners in mind, aims to make that happen, and through their work, they want to accelerate the 'Sovereign Individual' thesis. By enabling people to obtain a second passport and removing their dependency on any single state, it empowers the individual while taking power away from governments. People can now vote with their money and their feet. So how easy is it to obtain a second passport, and what are the pros and cons? In this interview, I talk to Plan B Passport Founder, Katie the Russian. We discuss flag theory, the state as a service provider, why some nation-states will fail to compete in a free market and how Bitcoin enables all of this.

SHOW DESCRIPTION Location: Remotely Date: Wednesday 21st July Project: Block Digest & Bitcoin Core Role: Host & Developer A core fundamental feature of Bitcoin is decentralisation. Being a distributed and decentralised network, Bitcoin allows anyone to transfer money to anyone else without relying on a third party or intermediary to authorise or facilitate the transaction. For years bitcoiners have fought to keep Bitcoin as decentralised as possible. A segment of the Bitcoin community wanted to increase the block size to allow for more transactions in each block. However, the tradeoff of this proposed change would increase the size of blocks and thus the size of the blockchain, making it harder to run a node on standard hardware. While the debates around decentralisation are generally around the protocol rules, Bitcoin also relies on the Internet, something outside of bitcoiners’ control. Some aspects of the Internet are highly centralised and could potentially be used to attack Bitcoin. So, how significant is this threat? And, what can be done to stop it? In this interview, I talk to Shinobi, the host of Block Digest, and Bitcoin Core Developer Dhruv. We discuss the importance of decentralisation, the protocols that power the internet and how a centralised internet threatens Bitcoin.

Location: Remotely Date: Monday 19th July Company: Blockstream, Lightning Labs Role: Researcher, Infrastructure Engineer The Bitcoin blockchain is an open public ledger, thus building privacy solutions on-chain is challenging. However, the Lightning network’s design is a massive improvement in privacy as the tradeoffs are different. Lightning removes transactional friction with significant security and privacy assurances today. But what are the potential attack vectors, and how might they be mitigated? In this interview, I talk to researcher Christian Decker and infrastructure engineer Carla Kirk-Cohen. We discuss the current state of privacy on Lightning, potential vulnerabilities and most likely solutions.

Location: Remotely Date: Thursday 15th July Company: Validus Power Corp, Bitcoin Magazine Role: Bitcoin Strategist, Director of Financial Markets & Research In Ray Dalio’s video How the Economic Machine Works, he explains the concept of deleveraging long-term debt cycles. Currently, central bankers have pulled all the levers they can to avoid unwinding the supercycle of global debt, but eventually, something has to give. The final tool that central bankers have to avoid creative destruction is inflation, and it is now a mathematical certainty that a devaluation of fiat currencies is coming. Is the rise of Bitcoin the only logical conclusion to the fiat money system? In this interview, I talk to Bitcoin Strategist Greg Foss and Dylan LeClair from Bitcoin Magazine. We discuss crony capitalism and perpetual bailouts, why debt cycles spell inflation, and how the world will turn to Bitcoin. 

Location: Remotely Date: Thursday 15th July Project: Strike Role: Role: CEO With Strike, Jack Mallers is taking on the traditional financial rails and neobanks by facilitating the sending of money anywhere in the world, near-instantly and for free. Strike does this by utilising the largest and best open monetary network of all time, bitcoin.  After running a successful pilot campaign in El Salvador, a country that relies heavily on remittances, Jack was instrumental in its groundbreaking bill that made it the first country to adopt bitcoin as legal tender. In a country where a vast proportion of the population operating outside of the banking system, Strike helps build financial inclusion, and they now have their sights set on the rest of the world. In this interview, I talk to Jack Mallers, CEO of Strike. We discuss the Lightning Network as a medium of exchange, the power of open networks, and how the Bitcoin rails change remittance.

Location: Remotely Date: Wednesday 7th July Project: RaspiBlitz Role: Role: Developers Bitcoin operates thanks to a decentralised network of nodes whose job it is to maintain the network rules, known as consensus, and ensure all transactions and blocks are valid by keeping a copy of the entire history of the blockchain. Setting up a Bitcoin & Lightning node can be a daunting task for those that aren't technical, but there are now a number of simple 'plug and play' style nodes like Umbrel, MyNode and Raspiblitz. In this second episode of our Lightning series, I talk to RaspiBlitz developers Openoms and Rootzoll. We discuss the importance of running a node, tradeoffs between custodial and non-custodial wallets and the different node solutions available.

Location: Remotely Date: Thursday 5th July Project: aantonop.com / Freelance Role: Role: Speaker, Author and Educator / developer and Data Scientist The Lightning Network helps Bitcoin scale. As a layer two solution, Lightning takes transactions off the base chain and allows for near-instant transitions for a small fee. While Lightning Network is growing fast, there is still a learning curve to understand and use the technology. This series will go through everything from how the Lightning Network works, the improved privacy, and why Lightning is vital to Bitcoin’s success. In this interview, I talk to Bitcoin Speaker, Author & Educator Andreas M. Antonopoulos and Lightning Network developer René Pickhardt. We discuss how the Lightning Network works and why scaling off-chain is so essential.

Location: Remotely Date: Tuesday 6th June Company: Unchained Capital Role: Head of Business Development When people attempt to understand bitcoin, it is easy to get caught up in some of the myths we addressed in Gradually then Suddenly Pt 1 - Killing the FUD. In this Part 2 episode, we go deeper into the principles of monetary economics. Money solves the intersubjective problem of trade and facilitates specialisation in society. Therefore, how we solve these problems can help objectively evaluate the properties of money. The most important property of money is scarcity, and bitcoin, with its fixed supply and monetary properties, reigns king. But from where do these properties derive? And what about other blockchains? How can bitcoin obsolete all other money? In this interview, I talk to Parker Lewis, Head of Business Development at Unchained Capital. We discuss the principles of money, monetary convergence, and why Bitcoin obsoletes all other money.

Location: Remotely Date: Friday 25th June Company: Suredbits Role: Software Engineer Bitcoin's proof-of-work blockchain solves a specific problem: achieving consensus of a distributed ledger without a central authority. Out of this decentralised network, new properties emerge like censorship resistance and probabilistic finality. Bitcoin's success led to an explosion of altcoins, with most claiming to improve upon Bitcoin somehow, whether it's speed, privacy or scalability. However, blockchains are a delicate balance of specific tradeoffs, and these altcoins pale in comparison to Bitcoin's decentralisation and censorship resistance.  While changing a parameter might seem to add functionality, it can also introduce unintended consequences. To resist influence and attacks, Bitcoin must remain decentralised by allowing for easy validation. Can we achieve sufficient privacy and functionality on the second layer? And why are other consensus methods, like proof-of-stake, flawed? In this interview, I talk to Suredbits software engineer Nadav Kohen. We discuss why blockchains must scale with second layers, proof-of-stake vs proof of work, and tradeoffs of privacy technology.