Bitcoin Takeover Podcast

We recorded this conversation in Mexico, at an undisclosed location, during the celebrations for Zcash's 10th anniversary. Daira-Emma Hopwood has been with the project for 11 years, since before launch, and came to it through Zooko and the Tahoe-LAFS community. Daira-Emma reviewed the code for the 2016 ceremony and designed the ceremony protocol, later co-authored the Halo paper with Sean Bowe and Jack Grigg, which led to Orchard and Halo 2 without a trusted setup, and has been a strong voice for Zcash Shielded Assets (ZSAs). Today Daira-Emma is Head of Research and Assurance at ZODL, the Zcash Open Development Lab, which the former Electric Coin Company staff started the day after they handed in their notice.

On the table next to us was the ceremony laptop we bought from Peter Todd: the keyboard, the motherboard burned with a blowtorch, and the discs that held the software and the transcript. Daira explains what went wrong with Sprout: the flaw was not the ceremony itself but the BCTV14 proof system, whose setup put values in the transcript that were not necessary and could have leaked the toxic waste.

From there we go through the codebase Zcash inherited from Bitcoin Core 0.11.2 and why Daira-Emma is relieved that zcashd is no longer a consensus node on the network, the Equihash parameter mistake that brought ASICs in sooner and pushed GPU hobbyists out, and why Daira-Emma designs for the long term instead of trusting today's mining pool distribution.

The second hour gets more personal and more political. Daira-Emma declares an interest as a founder who received part of the founders reward, defends the Dev Fund and the ZCG grant slice, and explains why the coin-weighted poll should not, in Daira-Emma's view, override the rest of the community, both on grants and on ZSAs. The conversation covers harassment on X, why sex workers were a constituency Daira-Emma had in mind when joining Zcash, and the call for crypto to fix its credibility problem with the left.

We close on AI: how the Orchard vulnerability was found by a person using a publicly released model, how ZODL switched Orchard off within 48 hours, the worry about developer burnout and upgrades every few months, and why understanding what we build is not optional.

What we cover:

- Where Daira was during the 2016 ceremony, and the Sprout counterfeiting bug inherited from BCTV14

- Halo and the move to Orchard and Halo 2 without a trusted setup

- Designing an MPC ceremony with very little Bitcoin experience

- Moving from zcashd's C++ to Zebra and Rust, and why precise specs help AI check implementations

- Block times, NU7 and propagating zk-SNARK transactions

- What Daira-Emma would change before launch: the Equihash parameters

- Crosslink, objective finality and partitioning attacks

- Removing the transparent side and private by default addresses

- The end of ECC and the start of ZODL

- Monero, ring signatures and competition between privacy protocols

- Network privacy: Tor, Nym, Dandelion++ and multisig for hardware wallets

- The ZCG grant controversy, ZSAs and coin-weighted polls

- AI, the Orchard vulnerability, post-quantum work and assurance

This episode is sponsored by Cake Wallet, SideShift, Orange Rock, eCash and Braiins Hashpower.

The full archive of the Bitcoin Takeover podcast, with every season and every transcript we have published, is at bitcoin-takeover.com.

Time Stamps:

0:00 Intro

0:45 Welcome: Zcash's 10th anniversary in Mexico

1:34 Where Daira was during the 2016 ceremony

2:31 The Sprout counterfeiting bug and where it came from

3:29 Halo: getting rid of the trusted setup

4:31 Zooko, Sean Bowe, Daira: dropouts or not?

5:32 Hands-on with the destroyed ceremony laptop

7:57 Designing the ceremony with little Bitcoin experience

10:35 What's good and bad about Bitcoin Core's codebase

12:15 From C++ to Rust: how different is Zcash today?

14:35 Block time, issuance and propagating big zk-SNARKs

16:56 Sponsors: Cake Wallet, SideShift, Orange Rock

18:24 What Daira would change in Zcash before launch

21:15 Crosslink: hybrid proof of work and proof of stake

25:33 Mining centralization: Foundry, China, hostile governments

27:06 Sponsors: eCash, Braiins Hashpower

29:00 Why Daira stayed with Zcash for 10 years

32:42 Projects built on Zcash cryptography

36:38 Removing the transparent side: private by default?

39:22 ECC dissolves, ZODL is born

45:11 Dandelion++, Tor and network-level privacy

47:57 VPNs, censorship and Iran

49:30 Hardware wallet hacks and self-custody setups

54:21 Slush, Trezor and Zooko

55:11 Any regrets about money?

55:35 The ZCG controversy and sex workers

1:05:27 Dealing with online harassment

1:09:37 Ironwood and Hopwood: who picked the name?

1:10:57 Zcash Shielded Assets (ZSAs): worth it?

1:23:20 Will Bitcoin ever adopt Zcash-style privacy?

1:25:17 Move fast and break things?

1:27:44 Why Zcash keeps its cypherpunk developers

1:30:50 Zcash 10 years from now

1:32:43 Daira's inventions and inspiration in cryptography

1:39:42 What gets Daira out of bed

1:41:31 AI, podcasts and training data

1:46:47 AI and the Orchard vulnerability

1:55:11 Head of Research and Assurance at ZODL

1:57:15 AI vs. training apprentices

1:59:35 Music, books and Zcash upgrade names

2:01:08 Amber, the Zcash color

2:01:58 Anything we missed?

2:03:48 Thank you and goodbye

Kris Nuttycombe of the Zcash Open Development Lab came back to the show two years after his first visit, this time on a hotel sofa at Zcon7 in Cancun, on the last day of the conference and around Zcash's tenth birthday.

We cover the price move and the Binance hack that was unfolding while we spoke, Zcash as what Bitcoin could have been, hard forks as a superpower, the end of Sprout and the inflation bug, Ironwood and formal verification, Crosslink and hybrid proof of work, ZIP 318 and Tachyon, the Dev Fund and Zcash Community Grants, the Equihash ASIC extinction event, and why ossification is death.

Time Stamps:

0:00 Intro & sponsors

2:09 Kris's second appearance

2:51 ZEC from $38 to $1,250

3:57 Zcon vs Bitcoin conferences

6:29 Privacy for refugees

7:42 NU7 & 25-second blocks

9:04 Why Zcash matters to Bitcoiners

12:12 Satoshi & zero-knowledge proofs

13:57 Hard forks as a superpower

19:32 Fungible internet money

21:56 Zcon7 impressions

24:27 ZEC flips Dogecoin

27:37 NEAR Intents & privacy at rest

30:33 Paying Visa merchants with shielded ZEC

33:43 A pluralism of currencies

34:19 Cake Wallet & Zcash Names

36:39 Unified addresses rant

41:35 The ceremony laptop & Zooko's CPU

42:06 Kris's story: Zooko & Tahoe-LAFS

44:22 Is Zooko Satoshi?

48:59 Sprout and the inflation bug

53:38 26,000 unclaimed ZEC

55:38 Q-Day & lost coins

59:21 Ironwood & formal verification with AI

1:03:31 The eCash hard fork

1:04:14 Dandelion++ & positive-sum thinking

1:07:04 Bitcoin dominance at 60%

1:09:10 Stablecoins are wrapped fiat

1:15:45 Are Zcash miners being phased out?

1:16:27 Crosslink: hybrid PoW/PoS

1:20:23 Kris's work at ZODL

1:22:25 ZIP 318 & Tachyon

1:25:26 Why Kris stayed with Zcash

1:29:39 Can Zcash ossify?

1:33:59 The currency of AI

1:40:23 Bitcoin layer 2s

1:42:10 Ossification is death

1:43:36 Saylor, covenants & 2106

1:46:57 Day two: Zebend

1:49:15 Zcash Community Grants & the Dev Fund

1:50:52 The Equihash ASIC "extinction event"

1:54:00 Security is not a market

1:58:12 Hashrate distribution

2:00:33 Proof of work & the labor theory of value

2:04:54 Hashrate as a finality gadget

2:06:25 Friendly forks & testnets

2:09:53 All value is social

2:12:31 Death by a thousand forks?

2:17:12 What if Zcash forked Bitcoin?

2:19:13 Zcash's next 10 years

2:21:44 Seed phrases & BIP39

2:23:14 AI made software cheap

This episode was recorded while driving to BitDevs in Atlanta. The car belongs to Art (at least 1/3 of it) and is the first vehicle ever bought for bitcoin in 2013: a 2011 Toyota Prius, for which the Mycelium wallet founder paid 1000 BTC.

We talk about cars, Bitcoin development, why the medium of exchange side of BTC matters, and how we can achieve privacy and scalability. Other people join too towards the end: Ekrem Bal from Citrea, Christian from Alpen Labs, Paul Sztorc from LayerTwo Labs, and Rob Hamilton from Anchor Watch.

Time Stamps:

0:45 Riding to the BitDevs barbecue in the 1,000 BTC Prius

2:05 The first car ever bought with bitcoin

11:29 Robin's 1,000 BTC dream car: a VW Beetle?

16:01 BitPay, KYC and why BTCPay Server exists

29:50 Would you pay 1,000 BTC? Shielded CSV vs Visa

32:54 Roger Ver and the block size war revisited

38:01 TABConf highlights: Peter Todd, Paul Sztorc and a 2029 cleanup

45:27 LayerTwo Labs, BIP300 and drivechains

49:31 Cake Wallet, Wasabi and the Spark custody problem

57:30 Arriving at BitDevs: the Taproot annex PR

1:01:09 Ekrem of Citrea and the Bitcoin privacy wars

1:06:24 Bitcoin Spaces and one name for every address

1:10:15 Alpen vs Citrea, then Paul Sztorc joins

1:16:10 BitNames and the Truthcoin relaunch

The second day of TABConf 8, live from Atlanta. Ekrem Bal talks Citrea privacy, Kevin Loaec explains Liana wallet, Spaces Protocol introduces BTC handles, Bitcoin credit unions enter the scene, Peter Todd unboxes his Zcash ceremony laptop 10 years later.

Time stamps:

0:00 Stream warm-up

2:29 Ekrem Bal: Citrea pivots to privacy with Crest

7:22 Privacy and scalability on Citrea

11:30 Privacy as protection from physical attacks

16:00 Lessons from almost a year on mainnet

19:00 User feedback and the Clementine web app

20:13 Alpen, garbled circuits and Clementine v2

21:33 Next use cases: lending, vaults and agent spending limits

22:51 Making Citrea post-quantum

26:21 Great Script Restoration and trust assumptions

29:29 OP_CAT vs CTV vs template hash

31:26 How Crest differs from Tornado Cash

33:12 Railgun and proof of innocence

33:53 Why build on Bitcoin instead of Ethereum

36:23 Favorite fork: Taproot and Zcash envy

38:19 The eCash replay trick

41:24 Skiing and mountaineering

42:51 110 BTC on Citrea

43:34 Kevin Loaec joins

44:31 First and last TABConf and the unconference format

46:21 A bad year: Coldcard, Liquid and Liana

48:00 Stu joins

48:41 Vaults vs Liana’s timelocks

51:59 Most interesting guest and 10 hour episodes

54:02 Forks magazine

55:32 Script emulation on Bark

56:08 Liana videos and Revault

57:32 Favorite covenant and enforced amounts

59:40 Wrench attacks and Liana’s exposure

1:01:07 Ledger leaks and buying hardware online

1:03:41 Coldcard’s RNG bug, license and bounties

1:06:07 Andrew joins: Spaces Protocol

1:10:30 Buffer joins

1:10:55 3,700 spaces and @bitcoin handles

1:11:18 The TABConf name giveaway and delegation

1:14:39 Nacho and payment handles

1:15:39 Burning @tabconf forever

1:17:45 32 bytes on chain and cert relays

1:19:15 Client-side validation and censorship resistance

1:20:18 One click install on StartOS

1:21:14 How Spaces makes money

1:22:17 What stops an alt Spaces?

1:24:01 Namecoin, squatters and 10 auctions a day

1:27:25 Utility: Nacho and social proofs

1:29:37 Don’t reuse your name address: silent payments

1:32:19 Spaces and Bitcoin’s scalability

1:33:39 Do names expire?

1:35:43 One character names

1:37:10 Insight gateways, Nostr and Blossom

1:40:43 The Fabric resolver

1:41:23 Handle pricing

1:44:02 Where to learn more about Spaces

1:47:00 Spaces and the forks

1:53:44 Last call for @tabconf handles

1:55:42 Goodbye Andrew and Buffer

1:57:34 Hallway break

2:00:00 Kevin Loaec returns: Paris, Sparrow and Miniscript

2:05:26 Funding open source without begging users

2:12:33 A horrible year: hacks and forks

2:13:47 Bitcoin follows the crowd

2:28:55 New guest and matching watches

2:29:57 What makes you bullish about Bitcoin?

2:31:05 Closing hallway chatter

2:43:10 Part 2: Back online: The Bitcoin Pivot and the three C’s

2:47:39 How credit unions will custody bitcoin

2:49:28 An advisory firm with vendor-agnostic partners

2:51:47 Why TABConf is welcoming

2:52:26 Feedback and the wave of credit union mergers

2:56:32 Credit unions vs banks: the not-for-profit mission

2:58:32 Lightning and paying with Bitcoin

2:59:10 Credit unions as Lightning service providers

3:00:22 Rehypothecation risk and Aave

3:01:39 NCUA, not FDIC

3:02:07 Where to learn more about The Bitcoin Pivot

3:02:52 Peter Todd arrives and the stream pauses

Live from TABConf 8 in Atlanta: Paul Sztorc demos a quantum-resistant soft fork, Christopher Allen on Blockchain Commons, Michael Tidwell on TABConf, plus Andre Beganski, Alex Lewin, Janusz and Will on their work in the space. Recorded on Wednesday, October 14th 2026.

Time stamps:

0:00 Stream warm-up

1:55 Welcome to Bitcoin Takeover at TABConf 8 with Paul Sztorc

2:30 CUSF 2 demo: quantum-resistant signatures, OP_VAULT, OP_CTV & OP_CAT

4:30 Sweeping coins into a quantum-resistant UTXO with BitWindow

5:05 Why miners will never run it

5:52 Is quantum FUD? Pascal's Wager & Saylor

7:50 Bitcoin's overconfidence & the competition

8:41 How altcoins took Bitcoin's use cases

10:17 Greg Maxwell & the belief in Bitcoin's infallibility

11:39 Camera dies, webcam to the rescue

12:30 eCash hard fork: free coins later this month

13:08 Soft forks are opt-in, ignorable & reversible

14:35 Kafkaesque: will soft forks become mandatory?

16:01 Live questions: claiming eCash & does Saylor self-custody?

16:46 Mike Belshe, BitGo & custodians

17:48 The war on crypto, PGP & Enigma

18:44 How to claim your eCash coins

19:13 Liquidity pools instead of paying for exchange listings

21:37 Shinobi walks by & the Coldcard trophy

21:50 Paul leaves for the Town Hall

22:34 Spotting Christopher Allen & sponsor thanks

24:14 André Beganski joins: from Decrypt to MARA Foundation

25:25 Decrypt, The Block & trade publications

25:57 DL News & DeFi Llama

26:49 Blockworks' offer & Supply Shock

27:43 BTCTKVR: Forks! magazine

28:10 The Ledger magazine & sourdough bakers

29:43 Going independent: Bitcoin Magazine vs Bitcoin Takeover

30:30 Storytellers vs AI

32:13 Original reporting & journalism as a public good

33:54 Sponsors & transparency

34:36 Camera battery woes & how to follow André

35:50 Orange Rock sponsor break

37:55 Alex Lewin joins: Finite & private AI

38:47 Fedi, Blockspaces & NCR

39:28 Atlanta, BitDevs & Capture the Bitcoin

40:14 Janusz joins: Zark = Zcash + Spark

41:38 Private AI meets private money

43:35 Privacy as an ingredient for liberty

44:03 Fungibility & a universal currency

45:21 Why Zcash-style privacy and not Monero?

47:05 Shielded pools vs ring signatures

49:44 Scaling privacy: Tachyon vs FCMP++

51:18 The first inning of privacy research

53:56 A bearish year: what still makes you bullish?

56:23 AI will make Bitcoin better, not worse

57:46 Why aren't you at the TABConf funeral?

58:50 The hallway track & why showing up matters

1:00:48 AI psychosis & conferences

1:01:36 Coffee, tobacco & AI as a productivity drug

1:03:08 Forks magazine handout

1:03:46 Atlanta's BeltLine

1:04:52 Favorite conferences: Bitcoin++ & Nashville

1:06:12 The Town Hall & the Tabbies

1:06:47 Paul has spoken at all eight TABConfs

1:07:43 Favorite fork? Bitcoin vs Zcash

1:09:22 The Orchard bug & a coordinated soft fork

1:11:29 Only Bitcoin is stubborn enough to invent witness encryption

1:11:59 Two hard forks this year: Luke's coin & eCash

1:12:40 Fork strategy: don't touch cold storage

1:13:43 Zcash as a BIP 300 drivechain

1:14:52 If Bitcoin goes to zero

1:16:13 Christopher Allen joins

1:17:40 Randomness warnings & VeriSign security reviews

1:19:32 LetheKit & dice entropy

1:20:00 Don't rely on any single key: multisig, MuSig & FROST

1:21:00 Wallet companies & the Coldcard victims

1:22:34 Coinkite, open source & closing the code

1:24:15 No single points of failure, compromise or denial

1:25:08 How Coldcard treated security researchers

1:26:36 Bug bounties in the age of LLMs

1:27:51 Cypherpunks who embraced Bitcoin

1:28:45 Netscape, SSL 2 & the RSAREF license

1:30:18 Writing the SSL 3 reference implementation & TLS 1.0

1:30:47 DigiCash & David Chaum

1:31:29 Certicom, micro-currencies & the Merkle patent

1:32:03 Schnorr patents & ECDSA

1:33:10 secp256r1 suspicions vs secp256k1

1:35:44 Discovering Bitcoin in 2013

1:36:08 UTXOs to revoke X.509 certificates

1:37:08 Decentralized identifiers & DPKI

1:37:37 Paul Sztorc returns: Rebooting the Web of Trust

1:38:32 Namecoin

1:38:59 Christopher's beef: key reuse in Ethereum & Nostr

1:40:30 BIP 32 & one key pair per identity

1:41:19 Christopher promises a part two

1:42:46 Paul introduces Will: 21 days before the midterms

1:43:35 Will on six privacy prisoners

1:43:59 Larry Harmon & Ian Freeman

1:44:45 Roman Sterlingov & Bitcoin Fog

1:47:32 Roman Storm & Tornado Cash

1:48:19 Samourai: Keonne Rodriguez & William Hill

1:50:59 The judge switch & the plea deals

1:54:25 The pardon campaign

1:55:42 Aaron Day's StarkFreedom PAC

1:58:52 Michael Tidwell joins

1:59:42 The Tabbies

2:01:29 Why TABConf 8 is the last one

2:02:01 Death by a thousand cuts

2:03:51 My first TABConf & thanking the sponsors

2:05:27 eCash: the calmest hard fork in memory

2:07:16 Will miners steal from drivechains?

2:08:15 TABConf debates: BTC vs BCH vs BSV

2:09:06 Monero, Dash & bringing people into the fold

2:09:51 Amanda B. Johnson & DarkCoin at the monthly meetup

2:11:55 No-shill policy during the ICO craze

2:12:50 Paul Sztorc's TABConf debates & Peter Todd

2:14:08 How TABConf got scammed in 2019

2:17:58 Greg Maxwell, Nick Szabo & who never came

2:19:45 Why the obituary happened a day early

2:20:31 Forks magazine

2:21:20 Top highlights: hardcore trivia & the standing ovation

2:23:40 What will Michael do with his eCash?

2:24:00 Kill Tidwell: Bitcoin comedy

2:25:12 Matt Odell never came

2:26:13 The first Bitcoin car & Rassah's plane

2:27:36 Atlanta lore: Jeff Garzik, Stephen Pair & BitPay

2:29:42 Bitcoin is not my religion

2:31:01 Favorite fork: Taproot

2:32:45 I like all the hard forks

2:35:24 Diversifying into airdrops: the most irrational VC

2:38:47 Goodbye Michael & wrap-up

After seven years of being in development, Tari finally launched in 2025. Why did it take so long and how many of the initial promises were delivered? Naveen Jain, Mr. Fox & Marguerite de Courcelle join the show to offer their best answers.

0:00 - Intro

0:47 - Welcome to S17 E45: Naveen, Mr. Fox & Marguerite

3:02 - What Is Tari? Mimblewimble, Four Mining Lanes & the Oodle

5:21 - Can Tari Compete With Solana?

6:32 - Meme Coins vs. Real Businesses

8:22 - The Ticketmaster Killer That Wasn't

9:18 - Big Neon, the Pandemic & the Spotify Exit

11:20 - How Dependent Is Tari on Monero's Hashrate?

12:26 - Why Four Mining Lanes and Two Tokens?

14:48 - The One-Way Peg: Burning XTM for the L2

15:43 - Tari Script on L1, Full Programmability on L2

16:13 - Sponsors: Layer 2 Labs & Braiins Hashpower

19:24 - The C29 Consensus Bug & How the Lanes Held Up

23:02 - The Beam Question: Great Tech Is Not Enough

26:18 - What Is Tari's Killer Use Case?

29:21 - Programmable Confidentiality: Securities, Escrow & Stigma Markets

30:15 - Fox's Cat Shirt & the $100 Monero Giveaway

31:36 - Sharing Security With Monero: The Underappreciated Part

34:09 - Did the Monero Community Stick Around?

36:52 - From White Papers to Tickers: The Decline of Ideas

39:14 - Naveen's Linkin Park Lesson: The Lowest Common Denominator

43:11 - Build Contests, Encrypted Messengers & Private Voting

44:48 - Learning English From Linkin Park

47:31 - The Meteora Bank Vault Listening Party

49:27 - Mining Q&A: Pool Censorship & RandomX Changes

53:19 - The Pool That Kept the XTM

53:38 - Will Other Privacy Chains Copy the Model?

54:52 - Sponsors: SideShift & Orange Rock

56:31 - Marguerite (Coin Artist) Joins

57:45 - From the Ethereum ICO to MaidSafe to Decred

1:00:45 - The First Crypto Puzzle Ever: Dark Wallet, Amir Taaki & Cody Wilson

1:02:12 - There Is Treasure Hidden in Tari's Blockspace

1:02:55 - What Marguerite Does on the Tari Council

1:05:52 - Building for Humans or for AI Agents?

1:09:09 - Giveaway Mechanics: Three Numbers, One Winner

1:10:00 - Attracting Normies: Blink, Browser Agents & Small Beginnings

1:13:00 - Tari Universe: Mining Without the UX Nightmare

1:14:28 - Where to Buy XTM (Or Just Mine It)

1:16:15 - Mining Monero and Tari at the Same Time

1:17:41 - Satoshi's Email to Laszlo

1:18:11 - Naveen's Number Is 43 & He Has to Go

1:18:31 - Does Gaming Belong on a Blockchain?

1:19:29 - Neon District, Axie & the PFP Ceiling

1:21:40 - Vibe Coding Three Games in One Weekend

1:25:01 - Online Poker, Frozen Accounts & the First Bitcoin Gamblers

1:27:42 - The Winning Number: 40

1:30:00 - If Monero and Tari Were Roommates

1:31:31 - Privacy-First Games: Fog of War & Front-Running

1:39:21 - Skybox, Modding Communities & Creator Royalties

1:43:39 - Mr. Fox Is a Furry (the Third One on This Podcast)

1:45:46 - The Real Use Case: Commissioning Art Without Bank Permission

1:47:46 - The Manicure Question

1:48:37 - Lessons From Neon District & Loot Boxes

1:50:56 - Vlad's Brother, the CS:GO Knife & the Rome Vacation

1:53:40 - Top Three Games of All Time

2:01:45 - John Carmack & the Open Source Doom Engine

2:03:11 - Tim Sweeney: The Cypherpunk Behind Unreal

2:06:59 - Amir Taaki's Lara Croft Origin Story

2:08:01 - Vitalik Rage-Quitting WoW & Colored Coins

2:11:06 - Bringing the Soul Back to Open Source

2:12:55 - What Fox Wants Built First: Payments Without Permission

2:14:55 - The Community Takeover & the Core Contributor Program

2:18:09 - Councils, Leaders & the Decentralization Paradox

2:22:16 - Andreas Antonopoulos, Vitalik & the Need for Faces

2:25:42 - The NATO Problem: Organizations Without a Purpose

2:28:49 - Steemit, Twitter Tip Bots & Make It Rain Doge

2:31:22 - Counterparty, Rare Pepes & NFT Archaeology

2:34:41 - When VCs Discovered OpenSea

2:36:30 - Infinite Fleet & the Game That Never Shipped

2:39:37 - John Romero: Why Play-for-Money Kills Fun

2:43:05 - Cats: Hunter & Salieri

2:46:43 - A Mini-Game for Vlad's Website

2:47:24 - The Trojan Horse Thesis Revisited

2:48:24 - The Builders Never Left

2:49:02 - Different Leaders for Different Eras

2:52:08 - Why Seven Years? And How Long Until the L2 Matters?

2:54:41 - How to Start Mining Tari Today

2:55:41 - Outro

Marc De Mesel talks about on selling BTC for Bitcoin Cash in 2017, funding BCH devs for years, why BCH failed despite being the best big block version of Bitcoin, what's in his privacy coin basket, his Tesla investment & having multiple girlfriends.

0:00 - Intro

0:47 - Welcome: Marc De Mesel, the Guardian Angel of Bitcoin Cash

2:01 - The Trade: Selling BTC for BCH in August 2017

5:00 - $300 Then vs. $300 Now: The Inflation Math

7:39 - From Investor to Benefactor: Funding BCH Development

8:49 - Amaury's IFP: Treasury Model or Dev Tax?

11:54 - Mike Hearn's Prophecy & the Flipstarter Model

14:21 - Bitcoin XT, Bitcoin Classic & the Article That Scared Vlad

16:00 - Sponsors: SideShift & Layer 2 Labs

18:36 - Why Bitcoin Cash Failed: Death by a Thousand Splits

23:03 - Miner Voting vs. Forking Off

25:54 - The Merchant Adoption Mistake

27:39 - Vlad's SegWit Argument: BCH Launched as Only 2x

31:58 - The Spam Attack Theories

34:25 - "Hijacking Bitcoin": The Store of Value Narrative Shift

36:37 - Never Sell, Borrow Against It: The Saylor Doctrine

40:08 - Stablecoins as the Free Market CBDC

41:59 - Saylor's Leverage & the Dot-Com Track Record

45:12 - Weak Hands and Strong Hands

47:30 - Marc's Altcoin Origin: Litecoin, Peercoin & 2012

50:34 - Network Effects: From 90% to 50% Dominance

55:09 - The Bear Market Liquidation Scenario

56:31 - Sponsors: Braiins Hash Power, Orange Rock & Cake Wallet

59:23 - Q&A: If Satoshi Returned and Disowned BCH

1:01:23 - Q&A: A Contrarian Opinion Too Far

1:05:24 - Q&A: Why Hold Tesla Through Five Flat Years

1:09:35 - Giveaway Reveal: The Number Is 69

1:10:55 - CME Bitcoin Cash Futures & the Thesis Update

1:12:22 - Privacy as Crypto's Last USP

1:13:52 - Vlad's Pushback: Transparent Ledgers vs. Bank Privacy

1:20:18 - What BTC Maximalists Missed in 2017

1:25:13 - Marc's First Bitcoin at $13 on Bitcoin-24

1:29:88 - Selling Too Early & Roger's Slower Hand

1:34:21 - Privacy Coins as Today's Bitcoin-at-$1

1:40:06 - The Zcash 40x

1:45:00 - The Privacy Basket: XMR, ZEC, Zano, Firo, ARRR, Dash

1:46:57 - Visiting Roger Ver Under House Arrest in Mayotte

1:51:46 - Zcoin, Firo & the Week Before Zcash

1:54:56 - Cryptonote, Bytecoin & the Monero Lineage

2:03:31 - The Biggest Wrong Assumption: Adoption Speed

2:06:21 - USDT in the Global South

2:10:17 - Conviction vs. Stubbornness

2:16:00 - NFTs on Zcash

2:20:52 - Shielded Zcash Adoption: Vlad Corrects the Record

2:27:03 - Selling Strength: Marc's Zcash Dilemma

2:33:56 - Rebuilding the Portfolio From Zero

2:39:16 - The Holy Grail Portfolio & the 2022 Wipeout

2:44:52 - Bitcoin, Tesla or BCH: Which Taught the Most?

2:47:36 - The Guardian Angel Costume Question

2:50:10 - The Dating Profile Question

2:58:18 - From Dating Sites to Cold Approach

3:07:58 - From Monogamy to Polygamy

3:16:45 - Does Polygamy Go Both Ways?

3:19:00 - Seven Children and Counting

3:20:27 - The Kenya Years & the Court Cases

3:25:42 - What It Costs

3:29:14 - Living Arrangements & Family Structure

3:37:00 - Old-School Fatherhood

3:51:28 - Trust Across Cultures

3:56:02 - The Tesla Model X in Amsterdam

3:58:00 - Buying Tesla in 2019: Sentiment at Rock Bottom

4:02:50 - Robotaxis, Humanoids & Chinese EVs

4:04:30 - Vlad's Toyota Supra Dream

4:08:07 - Eastern European Honesty

4:20:14 - Plan B If Alt Season Never Comes

4:19:37 - The 20% Target & Where to Follow Marc

4:20:00 - Closing Advice: HODL & Spotting the Top

4:24:42 - The Flip Scenario: What If BCH Wins?

4:26:01 - "I Was a Real Whale Once"

4:26:45 - Outro

The 2019 conversation with fellow crypto journalist colleague Omar Faridi is now remastered: featuring Bitcoin in Pakistan, the Petro scam, brain drain economics, and why nothing is absolutely good or bad.

Time stamps:

0:00 - Intro

0:46 - Remaster Notes: The Crypto Insider Colleague

2:29 - Somewhat Jealous of the Five-Article Days

4:01 - Sponsor Shoutout: Helen's Pizza in Jersey City

5:25 - The Original Recording: January 2019

6:12 - Omar Faridi: Crypto Journalist in Pakistan

7:47 - The State of Bitcoin in Pakistan

9:02 - Misinformation, Education & the $400 Salary

10:05 - The Exchange the State Bank Shut Down

11:08 - Potcoin: Pakistan's Own Cryptocurrency ($34,000 Market Cap)

11:53 - The School Owner Who Had Never Heard of Crypto

13:17 - How Free Is Pakistan? A Parliamentary Republic

15:33 - Voting for Parties, Not Presidents

18:06 - Freedom vs. Quality of Life

19:09 - LocalBitcoins & the Day Trader Who Bought From Omar

21:29 - How Free Are You on a Scale of 1 to 10?

23:32 - Freedom House Says "Not Free." Omar Disagrees

25:11 - Telegram Is Blocked, VPNs Work Fine

26:39 - Would They Block Bitcoin Mining?

28:42 - The Enforcement Problem: Corruption as a Feature

30:05 - People Are Stealing Electricity

31:32 - Could Bitcoin Give Pakistan a Kickstart in World Capitalism?

33:20 - The Stability Argument: Why Volatility Kills Merchant Adoption

35:40 - Alena Vranova's Embargo Bypass Thesis

38:04 - The Petro: Venezuela's Dishonest Cryptocurrency

41:30 - The Reuters Investigation: No Evidence of Use

43:14 - Sanctions, Desperation & Who Really Suffers

45:05 - Why Venezuelans Prefer Bitcoin to Bolivars and Dollars

46:50 - ICOs, Central Points of Failure & the Network Effect

48:29 - Putin's Cryptocurrency Speech & Digital Resources

50:02 - McDonald's as Political Ambassador: The Big Mac Theory

52:04 - Is the Big Mac Actually Better?

54:39 - Ethereum Classic's 51% Attack & Network Security

56:00 - Constantinople: The Hard Fork That Almost Happened

59:01 - Why Omar Trusts Ethereum Developers

1:00:36 - Vlad's Critique: Premine, DAO Fork & Arbitrary Changes

1:03:46 - Bitcoin vs. Ethereum: Different Use Cases

1:06:24 - The Austrian Economics Friend & the Broken System

1:08:46 - Rubini, Stiglitz & the Ponzi Narrative

1:10:03 - SegWit, Schnorr, Lightning & Blockstream Satellites

1:12:20 - Time Magazine: "Bitcoin Is a Guarantee of Liberty"

1:13:36 - Omar's Rebuttal: Nobody Cares About Schnorr Signatures

1:15:15 - Roger Ver, Bitcoin Cash & the Simplicity Argument

1:17:21 - DigiByte, Dogecoin & the Gateway Drug Theory

1:19:18 - The 50% Supply Problem: Worse Than a Central Bank

1:21:20 - The Gym Analogy: Altcoins as Training Wheels

1:22:46 - Omar's Moderate Manifesto: Nothing Is Absolutely Good or Bad

1:25:02 - Rubini Is Not Always Right: Use Your Own Brain

1:26:31 - Brain Drain Omar: The Name Explained

1:28:56 - Romania's Brain Drain: Second Only to Syria

1:31:35 - The Chinese Neighborhood Outside Bucharest

1:34:28 - The Internet Changed Everything

1:37:25 - Jobs That Didn't Exist: The New Economy

1:39:19 - Why Vlad Recommended Omar for Crypto Insider

1:42:54 - The First Email: Bulky Equipment & "It's So Easy"

1:44:56 - Stuart Haber Invented Blockchain Before Satoshi

1:46:41 - Coming Full Circle: From Local to Global

1:49:10 - The Orwellian Alternative

1:51:42 - Privacy Coins Will Have a Market

1:54:06 - Decentralized Exchanges & IP Tracking

1:55:04 - Where to Find Omar Faridi

1:56:44 - Closing: The Bitcoin Takeover Continues

BitGo CEO Mike Belshe returns after 20 months to discuss the Clarity Act, BitGo's IPO and retail launch, quantum-resistant wallets, AI code auditing, and what changed since we last spoke in S16 E1.

Time stamps:

0:00 - Intro

0:54 - Welcome to S17 E43: Mike Belshe Returns

1:26 - The White House Visit & the Clarity Act Vote

2:35 - Why Wall Street Needs the Clarity Act

4:43 - Martin Gruenberg, Operation Chokepoint & the Vulnerability Window

7:00 - Does Clarity Affect Bitcoin Payments?

7:18 - The Three Camps Inside Every Bank

09:12 - Will the Next Administration Rug Pull Crypto?

10:15 - Executive Orders vs. Legislation

11:08 - Larry Fink: "Everything Is Going to Be Tokenized"

13:30 - Market Structure as Infrastructure Robustness

15:42 - MiCA, the War on Cash & the Bitcoin ATM Ban

18:48 - The Cake Wallet Contest

20:17 - BitGo Today: Custody AND Self-Custody

22:00 - The Marble Pillars Lesson: How Banks Earned Trust

23:58 - Why BitGo Is Free for Individuals

25:13 - Coldcard & the Single Point of Failure Problem

26:19 - Two-of-Three Multi-Sig vs. Single-Key Cold Storage

27:38 - Bybit's Blind Signing Hack

29:47 - Random Number Generators & Why Every AI Says 17

32:42 - AI Code Auditing at BitGo

34:11 - The Frontier Model Business Model Is Broken

36:16 - AI Vlad & Seasons 18-21 in Parallel

39:18 - Regulators vs. Borderless Money

42:38 - The $3 Random Number Experiment

47:21 - Sponsors: Layer 2 Labs & Braiins Hash Power

54:27 - BitGo's Fork Policy: Replay Protection & the Three Criteria

58:41 - Why Two Bitcoin Forks in 2025?

1:00:53 - Belshe on Forks: Technical Merit vs. Politics

1:04:47 - Satoshi's Blueprint or Final Solution?

1:08:00 - Forks as Scaling the Idea of Bitcoin

1:10:03 - Satoshi's Unanticipated Centralization Vectors

1:13:16 - Clearing the Record: BitGo & the New York Agreement

1:17:46 - The Block Size Counterfactual

1:19:34 - Tether on Omni: A Technical Correction

1:23:56 - Liquid's Hack as Sidechain Vindication

1:27:11 - The Fee Subsidy Problem & Tail Emission

1:32:01 - Fixed Supply as Bitcoin's Fundamental Promise

1:37:03 - Miner Subscriptions & Marathon's Slipstream

1:38:48 - Fungibility, Privacy & the Regulatory Threat

1:41:34 - Zcash Shielded Adoption: 4.5 Million ZEC

1:43:12 - BitGo's Shielded Zcash Implementation

1:45:00 - Executive Order 6102 & California's Wealth Tax

1:48:16 - The K-Shaped Economy & Borrowing Against Assets

1:53:41 - Do Forks Inflate the Coin Supply?

1:58:28 - The Payments Expectation vs. Protocol Reality

2:04:24 - Stablecoins, Iran & Tether's Freeze Function

2:08:00 - Jameson Lopp, Casa & the New York Agreement Myth

2:12:15 - Ethereum, Solana & the Trade-off Landscape

2:14:30 - The BIP 39 Seed Phrase Experiment: Quen's Answer

2:15:19 - The Winning Number: 91

2:15:31 - The Religion Question

2:17:13 - SideShift Ad Read

2:18:10 - Quantum: The Perception Threat

2:21:38 - BitGo's Quantum-Resistant Wallet Architecture

2:24:07 - The Unspent Selection Mechanism Explained

2:27:03 - Satoshi's Coins & the Freeze Debate

2:28:11 - WBTC as Bitcoin's Largest Scaling Layer

2:28:25 - The Anthropic 100 BTC Bounty

2:32:06 - Open Source AI & the Arms Race

2:34:05 - Will Clarity Pass Today?

2:36:51 - BitGo Wants Competition

2:37:18 - Satoshi vs. Hamilton & Goodbye

Ethereum Classic veteran Bob Summerwill retells the DAO hack from inside the Foundation, explains why forks are features, and shares advice for Paul Sztorc's ecash launch, plus FIFA stories and lost ETH.

Time stamps:

00:47 - Welcome to S17 E42: Fork Season Begins

01:26 - Bob Summerwill & the DAO Hack Origin Story

03:11 - Slock.it, Smart Locks & the First DAO

07:03 - Child DAOs and the "Risk-Free" Pitch

10:04 - Bob's Reservations: Legal Liability & Randos Voting With Money

13:27 - The Reentrancy Bug: 14% of the Supply Drained

16:14 - Code Is Law vs. Bailout: The Great Schism

19:42 - Hoskinson's "Two Ethereums From the Start"

26:25 - "Can You Guys Please Stop Trading?"

26:44 - The Irregular State Transition (It Was Not a Rollback)

30:10 - The Hacker Threatens Legal Action

34:08 - The Vote & Activation Day

37:22 - Ethereum Classic: The First Minority Chain to Survive

41:34 - Forking Is Part of Nakamoto Consensus

42:19 - Sal, Donald McIntyre & the Cypherpunks of ETC

43:22 - Barry Silbert, Grayscale & the ETC Cooperative

46:26 - The Weird Roommate Theory of Forks

50:00 - Why Ethereum Classic Didn't Win

56:17 - Bitcoin Cash, Dormant Coins & Grassroots Adoption

57:35 - Vlad's "Many Bitcoins" Theory & the Accidental 21 Million

01:00:13 - Voluntary Consensus & the Little Dictators

01:04:37 - The Blake Fork (BIP 110) & the Node Democracy LARP

01:07:01 - Paul Sztorc's Ecash: The Maximalist Hard Fork

01:09:47 - BitVM, Rollups & Bitcoin's Missing Layer Twos

01:13:17 - Connection Trouble & the Speed of Light

01:14:03 - Sponsors: SideShift, Ecash, Orange Rock, Braiins, Cake Wallet

01:18:18 - Giveaway Reveal: The Number Is 96

01:19:28 - Why the Best Technology Doesn't Win

01:22:50 - Tether on Tron: The Joke That Worked

01:26:07 - Tron's Plagiarized Whitepaper & the Web 4 Roadmap

01:29:04 - NEO, EOS, NEM & the $4 Billion ICO

01:33:41 - Ultrasound Money & the EIP-1559 Burn

01:37:18 - The Prague Photographer's Lament

01:40:08 - Bob's Origin Story: Gold Bugs & the Alex Jones Phase

01:44:53 - El Salvador's Quiet Bitcoin Regression

01:48:07 - Meeting Bitcoin in a Pub (February 2014)

01:54:44 - Bitcoin 2.0: BitShares, Counterparty, Mastercoin, NXT

01:57:48 - Toronto, TD Securities & Joining the Ethereum Foundation

02:02:06 - Michael Ruppert's Collapse & Choosing to Build

02:06:24 - Self-Driving Cars & Assassination Markets

02:10:02 - Does Ecash Feel Like Early Ethereum?

02:13:53 - Will Bitcoin Ever Fork Again?

02:19:24 - WBTC: Ethereum Is Bitcoin's Biggest Sidechain

02:21:48 - The Self-Custody Industrial Complex

02:23:52 - Zcash, Monero & Tachyon

02:27:38 - "Everything Is an Experiment"

02:30:46 - The Block Size Wars Counterfactual

02:35:52 - Ethereum PoW: Anatomy of a Cash Grab

02:41:26 - ETC Labs, DFG & the Sabotage of ETC Dev

02:45:27 - Could ETC Have Flipped ETH?

02:49:07 - Bob's Advice for Paul Sztorc

02:55:50 - The EA Years: Psygnosis, Wipeout & Harry Potter

03:01:56 - "None of Us Play FIFA": Confronting the Chairman

03:12:22 - Fixing FIFA: The Seven-Year Turnaround

03:21:02 - FIFA Nostalgia & Vlad's Prodigy Brother

03:24:12 - The Notorious Wii U Tweet

03:26:37 - Professional Chaos Agent? Proof of Work Summit Stories

03:32:24 - Charlie Shrem's Time Zone & Nick Spanos Ghosting

03:35:51 - Advice to 2015 Bob: The Lost ETH Fortune

03:38:00 - Remembering Donald McIntyre

03:41:06 - The Nick Szabo Interview That Almost Happened

03:43:38 - Vitalik, Autism & Genius

03:47:08 - Early Days of Ethereum & the Ethereum Time Machine

03:58:36 - "You Got to Try" & Where to Follow Bob

03:59:22 - Outro & Sponsors