In this episode, I break down one of the most contentious mempool debates in Bitcoin’s recent history — the proposed removal of OP_RETURN limits. I explore what the change actually means, why it’s causing such a stir, and what both sides are getting wrong. Is this a technical clean-up or a social signal with dangerous implications? Could it quietly invite back the crypto spam Bitcoin has fought to shed? I do my best to separate the signal from the noise, stealman the arguments, and offer my own perspective on why this fight matters more than it seems — and maybe, why it shouldn't have started at all.

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OFF: The Oslo Freedom Forum (OFF) is an international human rights conference series hosted and produced by the Human Rights Foundation (HRF). Bringing together the world’s most engaging human rights advocates, journalists, artists, tech entrepreneurs, and world leaders, we aim to share their stories and brainstorm ways to expand freedom and unleash human potential across the globe. Don't miss this year’s Oslo Freedom Forum in May. (Link: https://oslofreedomforum.com/event/oslo-freedom-forum-2025/)

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Have you ever been tempted by the glittering world of crypto, with promises of easy money and astronomical gains? This week, I'm diving into a thread from someone who's been in that world for 12 years, detailing all their painful mistakes. From chasing ICOs and getting social engineered out of funds, to buying into DeFi bubbles and getting caught in exchange collapses, their story is a stark reminder of the risks involved. What can we learn from their journey, and how does it highlight the fundamental difference between chasing tokens and understanding Bitcoin? Join me as I dissect this cautionary tale and reinforce the simple lessons that could save you a world of pain.

Check out the original article: I’ve been in crypto for 12 years. Here’s every painful mistake I made (so you don’t have to)" by @PixOnChain (Link: https://tinyurl.com/ecwjkkw4)

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OFF: The Oslo Freedom Forum (OFF) is an international human rights conference series hosted and produced by the Human Rights Foundation (HRF). Bringing together the world’s most engaging human rights advocates, journalists, artists, tech entrepreneurs, and world leaders, we aim to share their stories and brainstorm ways to expand freedom and unleash human potential across the globe. Don't miss this year’s Oslo Freedom Forum in May. (Link: https://oslofreedomforum.com/event/oslo-freedom-forum-2025/)

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Bitcoin Core is in the spotlight again — and not in a good way. In this roundtable, Jeff Swann, Simple Steve, Bitcoin Mechanic, and I dig into the growing divide over mempool policies, the latest controversial pull request, and what it means for node sovereignty. Why is Core removing user configurability? Are we witnessing a philosophical shift away from Bitcoin's foundations? And more importantly — who's really in control of your node? This conversation is raw, fiery, and filled with high-level critique, speculation, and serious concerns about Bitcoin's future. If you’ve been hearing about “spam,” “filters,” and “dickbutts” on Bitcoin Twitter and want to know what the hell it’s all about — this is the episode. 

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OFF: The Oslo Freedom Forum (OFF) is an international human rights conference series hosted and produced by the Human Rights Foundation (HRF). Bringing together the world’s most engaging human rights advocates, journalists, artists, tech entrepreneurs, and world leaders, we aim to share their stories and brainstorm ways to expand freedom and unleash human potential across the globe. Don't miss this year’s Oslo Freedom Forum in May. (Link: https://oslofreedomforum.com/event/oslo-freedom-forum-2025/)

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What if the true barrier to a world of seamless micropayments isn’t technological, but psychological? In this episode of Bitcoin Audible, we revisit Nick Szabo’s classic essay, “The Mental Accounting Barrier to Micropayments,” exploring why even with lightning-fast, low-cost Bitcoin transactions, the smallest payments might never take off as expected. Can new monetization models, AI agents, and value-for-value systems overcome the hidden costs in our minds-or will human cognition always set the lower bound on how small a transaction can be? Dive in as we unpack the unseen limits shaping the future of digital payments and online commerce.

Check out the original article: The Mental Accounting Barrier to Micropayments by Nick Szabo (Link: https://tinyurl.com/8r5cewhc)

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OFF: The Oslo Freedom Forum (OFF) is an international human rights conference series hosted and produced by the Human Rights Foundation (HRF). Bringing together the world’s most engaging human rights advocates, journalists, artists, tech entrepreneurs, and world leaders, we aim to share their stories and brainstorm ways to expand freedom and unleash human potential across the globe. Don't miss this year’s Oslo Freedom Forum in May. (Link: https://oslofreedomforum.com/event/oslo-freedom-forum-2025/)

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"For me, the most important war, the thing that we are fighting for in the world today more than anything else for me is the spirit of the West. The spirit of the West has been under attack by globalists, by fucking adversaries, the trader parasite money changer class. That class, whoever the fuck that is, has been looking to destroy the productive spirit and soul of the West in any way that it can. Weaponizing everything from Chinese to fucking Indians to central banks to everything. And if that war can be fought without dropping fucking bombs and fought in a non-kinetic manner through economic means, that is the win of fucking wins in the history of humanity."

~ Aleks Svetski

What happens when you put an Austrian-leaning Bitcoiner and a self-described mercantilist in the same room to debate the future of America’s economic policy?

In this special re-release from the Liberty Lockdown Podcast, hosted by Clint Russell, I join Alex Svetski for a spirited roundtable on tariffs, the US-China dynamic, and the existential questions facing the West.

Are tariffs a necessary evil to restore American industry, or just another tax that will hollow out the middle class? Can a nation preserve its culture and sovereignty without sacrificing economic freedom? And is Trump’s chaos a sign of strategic genius or just more turbulence for a world already on edge?

We dig into the real-world consequences of policy, the role of great men in history, and whether Bitcoin is the answer—or just a hope for the next generation. Special thanks to Clint Russell and Liberty Lockdown for hosting this debate and letting me share it with you here.

Link to original episode on Liberty Lockdown: DEBATE: The US vs China/Guy Swann vs Alex Svetski (Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmELRv_Y8H8)

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OFF: The Oslo Freedom Forum (OFF) is an international human rights conference series hosted and produced by the Human Rights Foundation (HRF). Bringing together the world’s most engaging human rights advocates, journalists, artists, tech entrepreneurs, and world leaders, we aim to share their stories and brainstorm ways to expand freedom and unleash human potential across the globe. Don't miss this year’s Oslo Freedom Forum in May. (Link: https://oslofreedomforum.com/event/oslo-freedom-forum-2025/)

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New technologies demand a better imagination. Old models will break, and new, unexpected, and wild ideas will replace them. In this episode, I dive into David Bennett’s wild “Forest Walker” concept. Can Bitcoin mining actually tip the scales on ideas that couldn't breach the barrier into economic sustainability? Could a fleet of autonomous, Bitcoin-powered forest robots be the answer to catastrophic wildfires, or is it too much complexity in a world that needs simple solutions? Let’s dig in and see if this crazy idea is really as far-fetched as it sounds—or if it’s exactly the kind of out-of-the-box thinking Bitcoin was made for.

Check out the original article: The Forest Walker: Bitcoin Mining and Forest Management by David Bennett (Link: https://tinyurl.com/ypnvf9hw)

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OFF: The Oslo Freedom Forum (OFF) is an international human rights conference series hosted and produced by the Human Rights Foundation (HRF). Bringing together the world’s most engaging human rights advocates, journalists, artists, tech entrepreneurs, and world leaders, we aim to share their stories and brainstorm ways to expand freedom and unleash human potential across the globe. Don't miss this year’s Oslo Freedom Forum in May. (Link: https://oslofreedomforum.com/event/oslo-freedom-forum-2025/)

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"This over-developed brain wiring supercharged our interest in scarce assets and our drive to obtain them. Behaviorally, this may have amounted to making us weirdos who collected seashells, simply because we couldn’t help but value their special rarity. But as we’ll explore, that odd behavioral quirk may have made all the difference for our species." — Jesse Myers

What if the secret to humanity’s dominance wasn’t intelligence or brute strength, but a weird obsession with rare objects? Today we dive into a new and wildly interesting piece from Jesse Myers’ that tries to piece together evidence from pre-ancient history that may explain not only the importance of money in civilization, but that it may be more fundamental to the existence of our species than we even realize.Tune in as we dive into the evolutionary roots of money, the power of abstract thought, and what it all means for the future of value.

Check out the original article: Once in a Species by Jesse Myers (Link: https://www.onceinaspecies.com/p/once-in-a-species-73b)

 
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OFF: The Oslo Freedom Forum (OFF) is an international human rights conference series hosted and produced by the Human Rights Foundation (HRF). Bringing together the world’s most engaging human rights advocates, journalists, artists, tech entrepreneurs, and world leaders, we aim to share their stories and brainstorm ways to expand freedom and unleash human potential across the globe. Don't miss this year’s Oslo Freedom Forum in May. (Link: https://oslofreedomforum.com/event/oslo-freedom-forum-2025/)

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"All fiat dies because it's a trusted token that governments can arbitrarily change. Every fiat with every single powerful military behind it fell when the entity decided that they were just going to change the rules. And the military didn't protect them, the military protected them abusing the rules from the population.
Argentina's military did not protect the Argentine population from hyperinflation. It protected the government from a revolution. The Venezuelan, the Zimbabwean, the huge list of fiat hyperinflations, the military was not your friend. It did not back the currency. It protected the government of their ability to defraud the population and eviscerate everyone's life savings, eviscerate their paychecks, and make the entire country poor to keep the elite rich."

~ Guy Swann

Bitcoin isn’t part of the crypto casino—it’s something entirely different. In this conversation with Rajat Soni, we break down why Bitcoin operates more like language than a speculative asset and why trusted money inevitably falls apart. We explore the network effects that will keep more dollars chasing Bitcoin forever, the myth that the dollar is backed by military power, and why Bitcoin’s constant bid will bring long-term stability.

We also get into why altcoins can’t survive as global money, how the entire stock market has turned into a gambling machine, and the harsh reality of the U.S. government’s financial position. But beyond all of this, what is the most important downstream effect of Bitcoin? We dive into it all.

Huge thanks to Rajat for hosting this discussion on his YouTube channel - be sure to check out his work on Bitcoin and personal finance!

Link to original episode: Bitcoin will replace fiat - Conversation with ‪@theguyswann‬ (Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8OQ6HbFpO4)

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OFF: The Oslo Freedom Forum (OFF) is an international human rights conference series hosted and produced by the Human Rights Foundation (HRF). Bringing together the world’s most engaging human rights advocates, journalists, artists, tech entrepreneurs, and world leaders, we aim to share their stories and brainstorm ways to expand freedom and unleash human potential across the globe. Don't miss this year’s Oslo Freedom Forum in May. (Link: https://oslofreedomforum.com/event/oslo-freedom-forum-2025/)

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What does financial repression look like in real time — and how are people fighting back with Bitcoin?

In this episode, I read the Human Rights Foundation’s Financial Freedom Report #67, a roundup of the latest developments in monetary control, state surveillance, and Bitcoin tools empowering those under authoritarian regimes. From currency collapses in Turkey to smart contract-enforced CBDCs in Russia, we explore the chilling precision of financial control systems being deployed around the world. But it’s not all bleak — this report also highlights powerful tools like Stratum V2 mining pools, Cashew’s tap-to-pay e-cash, and HRF-supported grassroots adoption efforts in Pakistan and beyond.

I follow the read with a Guy’s Take on the medium-of-exchange debate — and why using Bitcoin as a store of value may be more radical than it seems.

Check out the original article: HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #67 (Link: https://hrf.org/latest/hrfs-weekly-financial-freedom-report-67/)

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OFF: The Oslo Freedom Forum (OFF) is an international human rights conference series hosted and produced by the Human Rights Foundation (HRF). Bringing together the world’s most engaging human rights advocates, journalists, artists, tech entrepreneurs, and world leaders, we aim to share their stories and brainstorm ways to expand freedom and unleash human potential across the globe. Don't miss this year’s Oslo Freedom Forum in May. (Link: https://oslofreedomforum.com/event/oslo-freedom-forum-2025/)

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Have you ever felt lost in the rabbit hole of Bitcoin? In this episode, I revisit Gigi's "21 Lessons of the Bitcoin Rabbit Hole," diving deep into Chapter 3, which focuses on technology.

What makes Bitcoin's technology so revolutionary? How does it invert the power balance of the physical world? We'll explore the cryptography that secures Bitcoin, the importance of decentralization, and the cypherpunk ethos that shaped its creation.

Is Bitcoin just another app, or is it the foundation for a new economic reality? Join me as I rediscover the beauty and simplicity of Bitcoin's origins, and ponder the exponential technologies that are shaping its future. Are you ready to go parabolic?

Check out the original article: Reboot - Read_256 - 21 Lessons of the Bitcoin Rabbit Hole - Chapter 3 (Technology) by Gigi (Link: https://21lessons.com/technology)

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OFF: The Oslo Freedom Forum (OFF) is an international human rights conference series hosted and produced by the Human Rights Foundation (HRF). Bringing together the world’s most engaging human rights advocates, journalists, artists, tech entrepreneurs, and world leaders, we aim to share their stories and brainstorm ways to expand freedom and unleash human potential across the globe. Don't miss this year’s Oslo Freedom Forum in May. (Link: https://oslofreedomforum.com/event/oslo-freedom-forum-2025/)

Trying to BUY BITCOIN?

Bitcoin Games!

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