Anna Baydakova, Senior Reporter at CoinDesk joins us to talk about Russia's complex relationship with Bitcoin. From Putin's surprising embrace of crypto mining to the grey market of mining rig distribution, Anna reveals how sanctions transformed Russia's crypto landscape. We explore Siberian mining operations and why Russians increasingly turn to Bitcoin as both protest and preservation against an authoritarian regime.

Link to the full report: https://blockspace.media/insight/in-between-worlds-the-state-of-bitcoin-mining-in-russia/

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Notes:

• Russia legalized Bitcoin mining in November 2024

• Hash rate dropped 10-15% after Ukraine invasion

• Electricity costs $0.02-0.04/kWh in Siberia

• Putin shifted from anti-crypto to pro-mining

• Telegram channels became primary crypto platform

Timestamps:

00:00 Start

01:16 Russia mining overview

02:56 Past 3 years of growth

08:30 Top Russian Miners

09:11 Mining "ban" is complicated

13:30 Who owns these miners?

17:31 Sanctions & War

23:23 Grey ASIC market

26:36 Wrap up

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👋Bitcoin Season 2 is produced Blockspace Media, Bitcoin’s first B2B publication in Bitcoin. Follow us on Twitter and check out our newsletter for the best information in Bitcoin mining, Ordinals and tech!

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Gold Investors Are Taking A Victory Lap! Colin explains how Boomer goldbugs finally get to take a victory lap as Bitcoin gets beaten out by gold in 2025. Were Bitcoiners wrong about the debasement trade?

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Rob Hamilton from AnchorWatch joins us to talk about the explosive BIP 444 proposal that could fork Bitcoin. We break down PortlandHodl's original 520-byte output limit idea, LukeDashjr's controversial technique to ban inscriptions, and the legal pressure being applied to mining pools. Rob explains why this fork will likely fail, what happens to your Bitcoin if it succeeds, and why opponents finally admitted a consensus change was needed all along.

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Notes:

• BIP 444 limits outputs to 520 bytes max

• OP_RETURN reduced from current to 84 bytes

• F2Pool controls 12% hash rate, opposes fork

• Mining pool switching costs nearly nothing

• Fork creates 2 coins: pure vs unholy Bitcoin

• Legal pressure applied to multiple pools

Timestamps:

00:00 Start

01:55 Portland HODL's proposal

04:48 PR 444 (is dumb)

08:22 Author of the PR: Dathon Ohm

09:45 Knots & Ocean inner circle

10:45 LEGAL & MORAL authorities! Oh my!

14:52 Assume 444 was merged, wat do?

21:55 Stamps maximalism! One jpg to rule them all!

28:47 Possible paths forward
31:09 What happens next?

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Tucker Carlson says the CIA probably created Bitcoin. We go back to the very beginning – to Gavin Andresen and the 1996 NSA paper on digital cash. The rabbithole goes very deep! (And we explain why it’s probably FUD)

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Notes:

• 1996 NSA paper on digital cash

• Gavin Andresen 2011 CIA presentation

• CIA infiltrate Bitcoin development?

• Why all this is probably FUD

Timestamps:

00:00 Start

01:49 Who is Satoshi?

03:48 Gavin Andresen, a CIA puppet?

11:05 NSA enters the chat

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👋Bitcoin Season 2 is produced Blockspace Media, Bitcoin’s first B2B publication in Bitcoin. Follow us on Twitter and check out our newsletter for the best information in Bitcoin mining, Ordinals and tech!

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Investigative reporters Jonathan & Sophie dive much deeper into what happened *after* SBF was ousted. Hundreds of thousands of individual customers became creditors, getting paid in dollar values from the bankruptcy filing date when the market bottomed out (Meanwhile, nearly $1 billion in fees went to the bankruptcy process expenses) When you're waiting for money and told you won't get it back while watching massive fee statements pile up, something feels really wrong.

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Notes:

• FTX had hundreds of thousands of individual creditors

• Creditors repaid in bankruptcy filing at market low

• Nearly $1 billion total in bankruptcy fees

• Sullivan and Cromwell among multiple firms paid

Timestamps:

00:00 Start

02:56 Beginning the investigation

05:37 Interviewing SBF

08:21 Beginning bankruptcy

10:23 The bankruptcy claim experience

13:30 Who handled the bankruptcy?

16:08 What were the FTX assets?

17:35 A complicated portfolio

20:07 Bankruptcy firm double dipping?

22:50 Customer questions

27:56 Are these fees normal?

33:19 Reimbursements to date

35:33 BTC go up

36:58 What's next?

39:35 Next step for journalists?

-

👋Bitcoin Season 2 is produced Blockspace Media, Bitcoin’s first B2B publication in Bitcoin. Follow us on Twitter and check out our newsletter for the best information in Bitcoin mining, Ordinals and tech!

Enjoy the show? Check out our website and newsletter by clicking here.

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Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Zach Pokorny from Galaxy Digital joins us to discuss their deep investigation into the mysterious 80,000 Bitcoin whale that moved last summer. The report uncovers a massive dusting campaign targeting over 40,000 addresses holding 2.3 million BTC with fake "abandoned property" notices. We dive into the Salomon Brothers connection, the $90K cost of the attack, and why this looks like classic Craig Wright-style lawfare.

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Notes:

• 2.3 million BTC dusted

• 40,000+ addresses hit

• Attack cost 0.7 BTC (~$90,000)

• 80,000 BTC whale sold through Galaxy

• 3-year dormancy minimum targeted

Timestamps:

00:00 Start

02:27 Size & breadth of the messaging campaign

04:39 Message contents

05:51 Legal definitions

08:47 Is Salomon Brothers real?

12:02 Why not use a law firm?

13:06 Did the 80k BTC seller get spooked?

14:31 Scale of the campaign

15:35 Satoshi addresses?

17:55 How did they choose addresses?

19:44 Lots of holders have "dormant coins"

21:17 Cost of the campaign

23:14 Links to other attacks

26:26 Speculating who this was

28:12 Court process & jurisdiction

32:12 Wrap up

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👋Bitcoin Season 2 is produced Blockspace Media, Bitcoin’s first B2B publication in Bitcoin. Follow us on Twitter and check out our newsletter for the best information in Bitcoin mining, Ordinals and tech!

Enjoy the show? Check out our website and newsletter by clicking here.

Questions or want to sponsor? [email protected]

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Pio Vincenzo joins us to talk about why MicroStrategy could become a $10 trillion company, how Bitcoin miners like Riot and Cipher are pivoting to AI infrastructure, and why the traditional four-year Bitcoin cycle is officially dead. Pierre breaks down the Bitcoin treasury company trend, explains why time is on Bitcoin's side, and shares his controversial take on why crypto Twitter must always lose.

Subscribe to the newsletter! https://newsletter.blockspacemedia.com

Notes:

• MicroStrategy owns 600K+ Bitcoin, no corp will catch up

• Money printing at $100-175B monthly, historically high

• 40% of money supply printed during Covid period

• Bitcoin miners repositioning for AI hyperscaler deals

• Bitcoin ETFs launched during Biden presidency

Timestamps:

00:00 Start

01:41 New wave of crypto content creators?

03:55 Bitcoin not crypto trend

05:45 Trump "insider" rumors

09:47 MSTR bull case

15:06 One DAT to Rule Them All?

18:46 BTC miners, WTF?

22:30 IREN & Cypher

27:42 Prediction markets

30:34 4 years cycle go bye bye?

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👋Bitcoin Season 2 is produced Blockspace Media, Bitcoin’s first B2B publication in Bitcoin. Follow us on Twitter and check out our newsletter for the best information in Bitcoin mining, Ordinals and tech!

Enjoy the show? Check out our website and newsletter by clicking here.

Questions or want to sponsor? [email protected]

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We're reporting live from the North American Blockchain Summit in Dallas, Texas, where roughly 30% of the world's Bitcoin hashrate is decided. The shocking reality? Bitcoin miners don't care about Core v30 or technical debates. They care about electrons, steel, aluminum, and profit. We break down how Foundry became the largest pool with 0% fees, why miners prefer FPPS revenue certainty over block variance, and the massive disconnect between Bitcoin's technical community and the mining industry.

Subscribe to the newsletter! https://newsletter.blockspacemedia.com

Notes:

• Foundry controls ~30% of Bitcoin's hashrate

• Mining pools dropped fees from 2% to near 0%

• FPPS model is “addicting” for miners

• Texas becoming finance capital with new exchange

• Most miners don't know their pool's Core version

• Future fee markets could disrupt pool dominance

Timestamps:

00:00 Start

00:28 NABS vibes

01:41 Miners don't care about Core V30

03:48 Miners care about profitability

04:44 Pools

08:59 Predictable revenue

13:10 Miner incentives

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👋Bitcoin Season 2 is produced Blockspace Media, Bitcoin’s first B2B publication in Bitcoin. Follow us on Twitter and check out our newsletter for the best information in Bitcoin mining, Ordinals and tech!

Enjoy the show? Check out our website and newsletter by clicking here.

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Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Riccardo Spagni (Fluffypony), former Monero lead maintainer, joins the Bitcoin filter debate and explains why it's following the same playbook as the blocksize wars. Riccardo explains his early studies on Sybil attacking Bitcoin nodes, why filtering is fundamentally broken censorship, the thankless job of being a protocol maintainer. We also discuss his WorldCoin criticism, AI agent commerce, and why stablecoins will likely dominate machine-to-machine payments.

Subscribe to the newsletter! https://newsletter.blockspacemedia.com

**Notes:**

• Bitcoin nodes connect to 8 peers by default

• Fiber network enabled faster miner-to-miner relay

• Filtering OP_RETURN stops only 1 of 6 data methods

• Spagni maintained Monero 2014-2019 (5 years)

• Lightning privacy requires permanent open channels

• AI agents will likely use stablecoins, not Bitcoin

Timestamps:

00:00 Start

01:16 Who is Fluffypony?

06:45 Worldcoin influencer?

09:30 Filters (that don't filter anything)

12:53 Why don't "all nodes matter"?

18:35 Knots node count

23:16 OK, define censorship

31:24 Community criticism

38:26 The future of the "filter TM" debate

42:44 On-chain privacy

48:32 The state of Bitcoin privacy

53:23 OP_CTV

56:05 AI + Bitcoin

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👋Bitcoin Season 2 is produced Blockspace Media, Bitcoin’s first B2B publication in Bitcoin. Follow us on Twitter and check out our newsletter for the best information in Bitcoin mining, Ordinals and tech!

Enjoy the show? Check out our website and newsletter by clicking here.

Questions or want to sponsor? [email protected]

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices