Popular Episodes

Niko Laamanen is the founder of Konsensus Network, a company that focuses on localising and distributing important literature about bitcoin, Austrian economics, and sovereignty. Niko recognised the importance of being able to convey the Bitcoin message into other languages.

I talk with Kevin Whitmore from Callaghan Innovation. We discuss payment innovations with the Lightning network, Bitcoin, Nostr, and more. I am encouraged to see an interest in Bitcoin technology from the New Zealand Government. I welcome Callaghan’s approach of objectively looking at everything that comes their way and making judgements based on first principles. Ultimately having a vehicle like Kevin’s work at Callaghan Innovation could be one of the ways New Zealand becomes a first mover in adopting Bitcoin. I am quietly encouraged to see the label "Web3" reclaimed by genuinely decentralised tech such as Nostr, Lightning Zaps, and Fedi.

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.

James Scaur has a great story, first discovering Bitcoin in high school, teaching himself programming and starting a business, before going on to work at Cryptopia and Easy Crypto while travelling through Europe and Brazil. He is now launching some exciting projects including bringing ⁠Azte.co⁠ Bitcoin vouchers to New Zealand, and making Bitcoin more accessible in Te reo Māori.

I talk with Christian Lewe from Blockstream Research. Christian is working on Simplicity, a more robust programming language designed as an alternative to Bitcoin Script. The project that has been in the works for over ten years and has been described by Adam Back as “the last soft fork”, and as Christian shares, enabling simplicity could bypass a lot of the contentious soft fork discussions about things like covenants as this functionality is possible with Simplicity.