I talk with Rigel Walshe (AKA CoinsureNZ), who gave a speech at the Baltic Honeybadger conference this year titled “Bitcoin as a Religious Phenomenon”. We explore this topic and how in many ways Bitcoin provides meaning and purpose in a chaotic world.
Whether it is the rapid growth in local bitcoin meetups post-covid, the spread of ideas such as self-sovereignty and rules for moral action, or the state of Bitcoin Culture on Twitter, the development of the social layer of Bitcoin is undeniable in recent years.
We try to understand this movement and how it scales to the world.
We also talk about Rigel’s time working in the New Zealand Police and what he learned there, and his current life in Latin America.
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Links:
Rigel Walshe on Twitter - https://twitter.com/CoinsureNZ
Baltic Honeybadger 2023 Talk - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsPqVqX5VJc&t=398s
Rigel Walshe on Medium - https://medium.com/@CoinsureNZ
Rigel Walshe on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@coinsurenz9697
Thus Spake Zarathustra, by Friedrich Nietzsche - https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1998/1998-h/1998-h.htm
Bitcoin Psychopaths vs Bitcoin Sociopaths - Baltic Honeybadger 2022 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mlhg1KGbZ04
Rigel on Swan Bitcoin - https://www.swanbitcoin.com/what-happens-to-bitcoin-if-the-internet-goes-down/
I host the Kiwi Bitcoin Builders monthly catchup for April 2024. This is a way to bring together people working on awesome Bitcoin businesses and projects in New Zealand. We share what we have been working on and what has been happening in the space. We hear about the Bitcoin Alive conference that was held over in Sydney, follow up on the success of the Lightning Pay beta, as well as hear from Satflow, a new Kiwi Bitcoin business exploring MEV on Bitcoin.
I talk with Brett Scott, author of The Heretic’s Guide to Global Finance and Cloudmoney: Cash, Cards, Crypto and the War for our Wallets. Brett does a lot of work supporting the protection of physical cash, and I reached out to him about an article he wrote “The War On Informality” which explores the implication of financial surveillance by credit cards and private banks.This is a thought-provoking episode. We explore the Commodity Theory of Money vs Credit Theory of Money, power dynamics, the importance of cash, and more. Brett offers some interesting critiques of certain Bitcoin narratives and provides some alternative frameworks for looking at how money works.
Jason Crowe is a business leader who has worked with Iconic New Zealand product brands such as phil&teds, Garage Project, and Goodnature. We discuss Jason’s time working in the banking world and his decision to leave it, as well as how he has come to understand Bitcoin and how it impacts business and finance.Finally we talk about the proof of work of sports and how athletes and sports teams may be able to incorporate Bitcoin thinking into the way they fund and organise themselves, and our new search to find New Zealand’s top Bitcoin sportsperson.
I host a Kiwi Bitcoin Builders call with a few people working on Bitcoin businesses, education, and projects in New Zealand. We debrief on the success of the recent Bitkiwi meetup event in Queenstown and also share some of the things that people are working on.
I talk with Bitkiwi Paul, co-organiser of the Bitkiwi Meetup Events. We are coming up to the end of the year and it is a good time to think about what has come to pass and spend time with family and friends. Bitcoin is just a bit of code, some words, a computer network, but for many people it can be a catalyst for profound personal change. Looking at health, introspection, self-development, and a reassessment of ones role in the community and in life. You can call it meaning making or finding purpose, but there is something about the idea of Bitcoin that is powerful, and I do hope you enjoy this exploration with Paul.