Popular Episodes

Dr. James Kierstead is a Research Fellow with the New Zealand Initiative focussing on higher education policy, including academic freedom. James co-hosts Free Kiwis!, a podcast dedicated to free speech in New Zealand, and also has a background in classical studies, in particular democracy in Ancient Greece. We talk about the declining state of New Zealand universities and the impact this has on graduates bringing their ideologies into the public sector. We also dive into the importance of language learning and, the economies of ancient Greece city states, and what we can learn from the past.

Dash is part of the Tokyo Citadel Group, who I was able to meet when I was travelling through Japan recently. My impression from the Tokyo Citadel was that there was real interest in privacy, security, and the potential threats that Bitcoiners personally face from the nation state. Now this is not unfounded, and we have seen people being detained over things like coinjoins and through chain analysis. But I wanted to understand this perspective more and compare it with the situation in New Zealand.

I talk with Rupert Carlyon, Founder and Managing Director of Kōura Wealth KiwiSaver. KiwiSaver is the voluntary retirement savings scheme for New Zealand and Kōura Wealth offers a Carbon Neutral Crypto Fund KiwiSaver product, which is Bitcoin only. This is a way for everyday kiwis to get some kind of Bitcoin exposure with government and employer matched contributions and tax benefits. New Zealand was very late to the game with retirement savings schemes and the impact of this is beginning to be felt with very low savings, and old-age poverty issues. With all the talk about the Bitcoin ETFs globally, it is interesting to explore how traditional finance in New Zealand interfaces with Bitcoin, and the regulatory challenges they have had to overcome to get this product launched.

Nicolas Dorier is founder and maintainer of BTCPay Server as well as NBitcoin Library. We talk about the BTCPay Server roadmap for the coming year, including Bitcoin Service Provider functions, and the bigger vision for the platform. We also discuss Nicolas experience going through the Blocksize War and how it prompted the development of BTCPay Server, his approach to assessing proposed changes to Bitcoin, and how he gets his technical information. We also talk about the impact of transaction fees and Layer 2 solutions.

Devon Lazelle has a background in banking and finance. We talk about her Bitcoin story and what is important to her, including the Proof of Work of motherhood, and exploring the best ways to enable children to learn and thrive in this changing world.