A deep dive into how BlackRock’s ETF quietly reshaped Bitcoin’s institutional credibility, global trade use cases, and the future of self-custody, insurance, and protocol development.
This episode explores how Bitcoin’s institutional era quietly accelerated after the launch of spot ETFs, with BlackRock’s approval acting as a social and financial signal that normalized Bitcoin for insurers, sovereign wealth funds, and legacy finance. The conversation weaves through European adoption, highlighting Luxembourg’s sovereign wealth fund buying exposure via IBIT, while contrasting it with cultural and regulatory dynamics in the U.S. and Germany. Much of the discussion centers on Bitcoin’s real-world utility in international trade, where it outperforms legacy banking rails through speed, finality, and low fees, especially under sanctions or capital controls. The guest also dissects recurring narrative cycles like quantum FUD, arguing they stem more from boredom and signaling than from near-term technical risk, while emphasizing that Bitcoin’s protocol development is steady and cautious by design. A significant portion of the episode focuses on self-custody, multisig, inheritance, and the rise of Bitcoin insurance as a response to physical “wrench attacks,” framing insurance as the missing layer that complements Bitcoin’s strong cryptographic security. Finally, the conversation looks forward to second-layer innovation, Lightning, Arc, Liquid, and emerging covenant proposals, arguing that Bitcoin’s next phase depends less on ideological purity and more on improving UX, security, and practical financial tools without compromising decentralization.
“As soon as Larry Fink blessed this asset as ‘here to stay,’ the calls from insurers started coming back.”
“The number one use case is international trade with Bitcoin.”
“Quantum FUD isn’t new, it’s just boredom when price goes sideways.”
“Bitcoin’s cryptography is solved; the unsolved problem is someone kicking in your door.”
“Running a node makes you a Bitcoiner.”
“Number go up isn’t greed, it’s a requirement for adoption.”
“Bitcoin lets you send a bearer asset across the world in seconds, with no intermediary.”
“Unintended consequences exist whether you change Bitcoin or not.”
The episode makes the case that Bitcoin’s maturation isn’t being driven by flashy headlines, but by quiet institutional shifts, practical business use cases, and a growing stack of tools around custody, insurance, and second-layer scalability. While debates around protocol changes, quantum resistance, and covenants will continue, the underlying trend is clear: Bitcoin is increasingly treated as a neutral, global settlement asset that solves real problems legacy finance cannot. As more institutions, sovereign entities, and everyday users engage with Bitcoin, often for pragmatic rather than ideological reasons, the network grows stronger, even if the culture around it becomes more complex and contested.
0:00 - Intro
0:29 - 2025 in dev FUD
5:04 - State of the industry
6:33 - European btc adoption
14:58 - Wrench attacks - Bitsurance
20:16 - Bitkey & Unchained
22:32 - Venezuela and new dynamics
31:06 - Tether & Ark
37:54 - Inheritance wallets
40:04 - SLNT & SOTE
42:27 - Time wasted on OP_DEBATE
53:24 - Quantum fork
59:39 - 2026 hopes and predictions
(00:00) As soon as Larry think uh blessed this asset as like okay this is here to stay to get a call back from all these other insurance companies the sovereign wealth fund of Luxembourg purchased 1% of their like holdings into IBIT. The Maduro regime may have acquired 600,000 Bitcoin. The theory is that they were doing two things.
(00:16) Swapping gold for Bitcoin with other countries. They're gold rich. The other and selling oil for tether. >> The number one use case is like international trade with Bitcoin. >> Chris, I've been I've been enjoying your game, sir, online. I had to reach out and say I need to get you on the podcast to talk about Bitcoin.
(00:39) How are you >> doing? Well, I I'm very slutted. Thank you. >> You're you're the tallest troll on uh on Bitcoin Twitter. How's that feel? >> That is actually something I've never heard. Like I' i've heard like tallest [ __ ] poster, the tallest troll. Like that that makes uh a lot of sense. I I I take it. >> Um yeah, I was thinking, guess what? We're 3 days past the 17th anniversary of the Genesis block.
(01:06) And I think uh you've been in Bitcoin for quite a while. We had the pleasure of meeting in person in Ria Latia at the Baltic Honeybadger conference in 2024. Haven't caught up since. And like I said, I've been observing your game on X and I think 2025 particularly was a a crab year in Bitcoin price. We sort of ranged and people get very crabby when they range.
(01:30) We had narratives popping up whether it was uh the OP return limits getting lifted uh bit 444 Bitcoin knots and we we tied the year up with quantum FUD. Uh what what are your thoughts on just the the state of discourse around Bitcoin protocol development specifically? >> So protocol development I think is doing like uh is just chugging along just fine.
(01:58) um besides like this critical bug that they just found in Bitcoin version 30 that deletes legacy wallets. But other than that like uh yeah I mean uh I tried to uh make light of the filter situation uh the entire last year I think and I'm very happy that we moved on now to like the quantum thud like I think February 1st is like bit 44 signaling day or something.
(02:21) I have not seen a single note signal of that or like a single minor. Um, yeah, that's not going to happen. But >> yeah, why do you think why do you think these narratives manifest within Bitcoin? >> Quantum specifically for me was like, come on guys, we've been talking about this for years now. >> Yes.
(02:44) Some people suffer from like main character syndrome and then it's a good angle to uh remind people, hey, I'm still around. Um uh I mean the the irony like I have nothing against Nick Carter uh even though he blocked me. Um but like he he like came up with these very nice dice. the FUD Bitcoin dice um where like quantum was one side and now he's uh like investing with his VC fun he led and invest in like a a company that makes blockchains quantum secure and like that company uh like I stalked on LinkedIn now proud he says we're making salana quantum secure which you know
(03:23) sure scams I'm fine with that but like preaching or like he he ended with like um everybody's going to dump on Bitcoin now because uh I said so and I wrote this blog post and I think that's too much. Uh I mean it's worthwhile having these conversations and I like to see that like our smartest um cryptographers are working on something and that we're like not unprepared and we actually have contingency plans but uh yeah I mean it's just boredom I think because not that much happens and everything has been going too well price has been quite
(03:57) high you know need a new narrative. Yeah. And now as the price is drifting higher to start the year, people I haven't heard any quantum FUD since uh since around Christmas time. Yeah, I mean it's it's going to happen soon that they are factoring like larger numbers like I mean there was this paper um I think um Brand Black like he he went through it and like um who was the physicist from Fidelity um Bob what's his name his name >> Miguel >> yes Miguel Ras um there was a paper claiming oh we have a broken a sixbit
(04:36) ECC key like an elliptic curve key. And then he went through this paper and like he saw, oh, you guys guessed 100 times uh and a six bit key to the power of six. It's like 64 like two two there's 64 possibilities and you guessed 100 times. So I'm not that flustered that like uh any sort of key is being broken in the near-term future, let alone like 128 bits. But um yeah. Yeah.
(05:07) What um again like what what do you think of just like the broad state of Bitcoin itself? Not the protocol. Well, the protocol and the industry. You've been working as we were discussing before this on Satskeeper. You're working on a Bitcoin insurance company. >> I mean I have like a few companies that that deal with self-custody with inheritance and insurance of Bitcoin.
(05:27) Mainly I'm focusing my energy on um the store value aspect of Bitcoin. like uh I wish more people would use it as a medium of exchange, but that simply is not the reality. Um like uh I I use my Bitbox and they have like a a bit refill integration and from time to time I use Bit Refill to to purchase goods and stuff, but I know that I'm in the absolute minority.
(05:51) And I would have thought like 10 years ago, like in 10 years from now, like we would see a lot more adoption that way. And again, I'm Europour. uh I was not uh blessed with uh like 4 million square terminals where you can now pay with Bitcoin everywhere. I think this is like the most enormous news that has happened last year.
(06:11) Um but yeah, I think so more companies are coming in more um like retail investors the interest is not really there or isn't back like it was in 2021. Um but we have a lot of interest from uh yeah institutional holders to to have Bitcoin on the balance and have it properly in self-custody. So that's what I observe.
(06:33) >> You mentioned that you're a Europore. Uh what is the uh the state of the Bitcoin industry and the posturing towards Bitcoin as an asset from uh European officials and what are the boots on the ground reports of individuals? So I I reside here in the uh small uh Grand Ducy of of Luxembourg.
(06:55) I'm sure you can point it on a map as an American high school educated person. Um and our finance minister he just spoke in Bitcoin at Bitcoin Amsterdam. Um the sovereign wealth fund of Luxembourg purchased 1% of their like holdings into like IBIT which is like a ginormous step I would would say. like Luxembourg is like a small country 600,000 inhabitants but like ton and ton of people from Belgium and France and Germany come here to work and there is this thing where if you work for 10 years even if it's minimum wage um you are entitled to like
(07:29) a fat pension um once you reach retirement age and that was paid out from this uh wealth fund that this uh it's not a kingdom like we have a grand duke um and that was set to expire like in 2045 or something like because markets whatever and they're spending too much money as all governments do. Um so I think it's like the right choice to uh pivot uh a little bit into Bitcoin exposure. Um so I'm I'm bullish on that.
(07:57) Uh I'm natively German. I'm not that bullish on that country. Um we have a really strong Bitcoin community and I would say of all the European countries um we have the most toxic Bitcoin only maximal crowd. Like if I go to a French Bitcoin meetup, it will be a Bitcoin meetup, but people will Yeah.
(08:20) shield you IOTA and Ethereum and Salon and all those good things. Um >> is still around. >> Yeah, IOTA is German by the way and and it is quantum secure because I know that I invested like in 2015 2016 when did it come out? Like I I bought that whole [ __ ] Um uh David Sonst was his name like oh it's not binary it's uh turnary like you have minus one + one and zero and like I bought this whole quantum [ __ ] like 10 years ago and my my IOTA bags during my my shitcoin period.
(08:58) Um yeah uh those would have been some some cool cool Bitcoin but um yeah it's still around. Like just yesterday I saw like a paid ad for for IOTA which is like insane to me but they were funded in Bitcoin I guess. >> I remember uh I remember the IOTA my shitcoiner day around days around that time too. It seems like we've been in Bitcoiner around the same amount of time.
(09:22) What what drew you to it originally? Um, so I had a friend in in university who was really into this. Like he was really paranoid. Um, and he gave me Bitcoin. Um, like for free, like a ton of Bitcoin. And I was thinking, hey, uh, I don't need this. I have PayPal. I have all the means to to pay for stuff and goods and services.
(09:43) And once it reached like uh not euro parity, like was at 50 cents or so, like I I sold my my bag for like an a graphics card. um and uh then neglected it for like 2 years and then it came back [ __ ] should I have kept this? But I was not a cipher punk. I was an engineer. I was at university with like technical-minded people and there was a lot of conversation about like Bitcoin but um I didn't gro it until let's say 2017 when I realized hey hang on uh all my my stock gains like I came in and I always I'm gladly admit this like I came in for
(10:19) number go up like I always say like there's two two kinds of Bitcoiners people that come for number go up and [ __ ] liars and I admit that like people come into it and then they change and then they stay for the sovereignty and they stay for the freedom money and like the the [ __ ] you money and those great great aspects but and maybe today with all the education that we have like a lot more people come into it from that side without this number go up but like back then I would vag everybody went into bitcoin because wow this this is an
(10:53) asset that goes up and you know that's why my genesis >> number go is the uh the best technology that humans have ever come into contact with. It is uh as somebody because we were discussing this uh earlier like I I use Bitcoin as a medium of exchange. I pay Logan is on here now.
(11:15) He gets paid in Bitcoin every two weeks. Uh other other members of our staff get paid in Bitcoin by my VPN service with Bitcoin. uh and the the payments aspect is uh very useful, incredibly important, but I think people try to overindex on that um even though I use it every day literally um as a payments means people overindex on that and try to fade number go up because it's like ah we're me just sound greedy here but I think it's >> they get down to Bitcoin's sort of path towards success Yes, you need number to go up massively over time.
(11:54) >> Yeah, I mean it's uh inevitably like people will have more eyeballs on it and more people will accept Bitcoin and want to be paid in Bitcoin. Um if it's like crab walking for like 5 years, I'd be fine, but I would assume that adoption would like not grow as steadily. Um, I I use Bitcoin daily again in my company.
(12:14) Like I pay people in Canada and in Australia and I'd rather put a bullet in my brain to do like a wire transfer and wait like three or five days and pay like 50 bucks in fees like from a German bank to a Luxembourg bank to like a Singaporean and like it takes ages and with Bitcoin like just like and it doesn't get old like every time I get like a separate invoice and I just pay it in like a couple seconds and then the guy texts me, man, are you ever like asleep or what? No, it's like sending like this bear asset, like this digital cash at
(12:46) the end of the globe in like a second and like there's nothing I can do to to take or claw it back. Uh, and that guy is paid and no intermediary has been paid. Maybe like I don't know, lightning or like an onchain fee of like a couple cents right now. That's amazing. But I get that I'm like an enthusiast.
(13:02) Like I run my own nodes. I have like enough uh liquidity management to like pay any invoice. like I pay several million sets uh easily when other people struggle with that. Uh like the technology is not or the UX is not there yet. Like I'm really bullish on arcade and all these things and I'm happy that people like smarter people work on that.
(13:23) Um but yeah, I want to see more people use it. >> Are we a dying breed? people ever run their own nodes and self-custody and >> I I think like if the last year taught us anything is that like running a node makes you bitcoin. So uh there's a lot of larking bound around that. Um but every customer that I get, they're really like privacy conscious these days.
(13:52) Like it used to be like only uh like the tinfo wearing uh weirdos uh that we're like into this like us like we are like oh I I'm using a VPN like that is like weird nowadays. It's absolutely normal. And now when I onboard people like I'm a big fan of Lyanna wallet um I always explain the the privacy implications of connecting your your wallet descriptor to an external node because then of course you leak your holdings like there's no no loss of your keys but you lose some privacy and especially with like a wallet like Lyanna you can like it's a
(14:24) single single click and have a prune node installed fully like there's no porting magic like everything happens in the background if like 35 GB of blockchain data downloaded over the next 2 3 days or so and I show this to people and they're excited. Wow, now I have my own like full node like I can onboard people now 100% the right way.
(14:45) They get like a hardware signer, they get like a multi-IG, they get a node. Um, and I think that interest has grown. So, no, we're not a dying breed. Not not in my world. >> That's good to know. What um what do you think about uh obviously Jame Lop has been following the the wrench attacks on Bitcoiners and I think that is uh and then as somebody who's really focused on self custody multi-IG self-custody specifically um what do you think about the conversation around self- custody and the fears that are beginning to increase
(15:20) because of these wrench attacks which if you look at it and you take 8 billion people into accounts. Um, and all right, maybe we'll shrink the the total addressable market to the amount of people that hold Bitcoin or wider crypto to maybe hundreds of millions. Um, I think there was 35 $5 wrench attacks last year.
(15:41) Um, how do you >> I think it was even more like I think James Lop actually like he used to manage this GitHub all by himself and now he has like somebody who who puts all those data entries in there because it was like one once one a week like 52 or something at least. Um yeah, I mean that that drove me to to launch Bit Insurance.
(16:01) Um like I know how to perfectly protect my Bitcoin uh against any form of cyber threats like that that is solved like we have hardware signers, we have geographically distributed multisigs. I would say it is because the magic of Bitcoin script as opposed to any other shitcoin like you have all the primitives all the security built in natively on Bitcoin to be protected against hacking like you can be socially engineered.
(16:29) Um, but like most of these hackings again like they they are like down to user error. Like in the end like the person being hacked uh signed the transaction because he was duped. Like that is solved. Like you can like I I would wager actually like there has not been a a hardware signing device that has been hacked.
(16:45) Like we all wear these tinfoil hats like I don't know cold card with like a ton of secure elements etc. Like everything like that is solved. But like I for my for the life of me could not figure out what I would do in the event somebody kicks in my door. Like if somebody comes in and threatens me, my family or like anybody I love.
(17:05) Um I can of course start drawing like a chart and tell hey I have a five of six whatever multisc I have like this time decaying thing like you can't uh physically like uh you have to like abduct me to different places for me to sign the transaction. Um, wouldn't it be great uh if I could give them like an old ledger or something with some Bitcoin, even like a larger sum and they would be happy and left me alone maybe? Like why can't they ensure something like this? We're looking around like in 2022 2021 when we launched the idea like the
(17:37) company was found formed in 2022. Um, and like nobody would want to touch Bitcoin as a insurable medium whereas you can ensure your gold bars against like a robbery. you can ensure your your fine art against robbery. Like that's that's no problem. Um but Bitcoin back then was like uninsurable and that's why we like launched insurance with the hope to like give you a bargaining chip um in the event of a $5 wrench attack.
(18:01) And since then like anchor watch has also come along and I think that is the last missing mosaic like a puzzle piece in like your perfect security setup if you have like cyber protection plus five wrench protection. >> Mhm. And what what do you think changed the minds of Lloyds of London and other insurers out there that are getting them comfortable too? >> Becca is very persistent.
(18:29) I think she changed her mind there. Um so like we when we launched we talked to virtually every single insurance company in Europe. um and they laughed in our face and like uh closed the door and some people reinvited us and kept like screwing us along and sooner or later you realize oh there's like two people, three people, five people in these calls.
(18:52) Um suddenly you realize, oh you're being abused for like uh educating their staff on Bitcoin, but they're never going to sign or underwrite your product. Um and that abruptly changed uh in 2024 when was it like the the Bitcoin ETF launched. I think as soon as like Larry Fink uh blessed this asset as like okay this is here to stay um you get a call back from Aliance you get a call back from all these other insurance companies because they realize okay this is not just some crazy asset um there is some money to be made uh insurance companies
(19:24) they need to like invest in products uh that that uh are of interest to be insured and uh yeah that was a blessing dising this guys like we launched in 2022 we had a white label insurer which was kind of unknown. Um, and yeah, they they went under uh sadly, not because of us, because of they had like a financing round with like €50 million and then uh like by the end of 2024 um they they had to file chapter 11.
(19:55) Uh no no customers of ours was like hurt by that. We we could migrate uh and now we have Liberty Mutual like one of the largest uh speciers in the world as an underwriter. Um, and they are not messing around. Like it's it's good to to have these uh financialization developments. Like I'm not a big fan of Black Rockck, but it helped bring the conversation forward.
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(22:27) com and use the code TFTCT10 at checkout to get 10% off your new Bitcoin multiig vault. That's TFTCT10@unchain.com. It really does. It's weird how social u the social aspect of a social signaling from those we perceive to be successful comes into play here and is weird like uh >> I think that's another thing I've been like grappling with but just uh sitting back and observing over the last few years since the ETFs launched and here in the states as we've had these uh treasury companies launch and Michael Sailor really uh skyrocket himself to uh
(23:01) the the top of uh Bitcoin fame, if you will, for lack of a better term, is this uh sort of confrontation with the cipher punk roots that Bitcoin was founded in and grew up with and the suits coming and saying, "All right, we like this asset, too." And people reacting to it. I think I mean, I've always been uh in MBK's camp where Bitcoin is successful.
(23:28) Everybody's going to want to adopt it, and you just have to >> Exactly. Like >> you just have to accept >> it's a great thing like what do you expect like everybody wants a piece of pie of the pie if like we build something this good like of course nation states will come of course like the the financial players will come like bitcoin is for for anybody who who wants it and uh it strengthens your network like the more greedy somebody is the better it is for everybody else um but there's like yeah entirely new dynamics now like I don't know with Venezuela I
(24:00) don't know if that is fake news or something. It's like really it's really weird uh that like okay there's a stage with 600,000 Bitcoin and uh Donald has just abducted. >> We were uh we were talking we were talking before we hit record about how Odell likes to troll in the chat. He's actually trolling me in the chat right now cuz I did a short video on uh the Venezuelan story and then our team here at TFTC click baited it when the the tweet says, "What if I told you a DF DEA informant might control access to
(24:29) 600,000 Bitcoin?" That's a wild theory, but uh I don't know. Do they have 600,000 Bitcoin? Maybe. Uh >> I mean, it's just like some some assumption. Uh and I'm pretty sure that Maduro did not. I mean, he had like five different outfit changes. maybe at like a lot of hardware designers stuck in in Nike. >> What is the European perspective on what the US just did over the last 5 days? So like demonstrabably like it's not constitutional what you did um pretending like otherwise it's like a little bit like muddying the the waters
(25:03) there but like uh these constitutional rules like they they work in like stable systems like it's like currently the world is not that and uh I think the general um reaction in Europe would be like orange man bad and like he can't do that. Um, but like if you talk to anybody who has actually lived under Venezuelan communism, like they understand viscerally uh like they're very relieved like they they're very happy that he has been removed and it's like one of the cleanest military operations to to have ever occurred.
(25:37) Like so clean that some people might say, okay, this was like he he he cut a deal and voluntarily like uh uh came to the drop off spot. Um but like my take is again uh like this was necessary. Uh it's I'm happy he's gone. And um yeah, even though like I I believe more so than Trump, I believe in in soft power and he does not believe in that like at all.
(26:03) Like he like soft power only works on people that listen to reason and uh there are some international players right now who would not listen to reason. And yeah, occasionally reminding everyone uh where the larger stick resides. um that recalibrates like some incentives uh much faster than like some UN statements or like some European finger wagging.
(26:27) So yeah, I'm I'm on board with this move, but I I would not want to be on the receiving end. Like >> I think there was definitely a pre-range deal. Like if you look at how happy Maduro is when he's like sitting with the DEA agents, it's like you knew uh you knew something was happening. Um, but like going back to I mean again, who knows whether or not they have 600,000 Bitcoin, but I mean people have been speculating and these stories been out there.
(26:52) It's been actually funny to watch um the Venezuela Bitcoin story hit mainstream because I'm sure as you know if you've been in the industry for a decade you know the Venezuelans I think on a per capita basis were some of the um largest adopters of Bitcoin simply because they needed to because they had hyperinflation and a dictatorship that they were trying to evade and Bitcoin mining was big in Venezuela.
(27:14) I think they were top three country at one point uh about 10 years ago. Um then Maduro came in and ruined that by seizing all the mining operations. Um obviously the diaspora that has resulted from the socialist dictatorship over the last 25 years. You have people sending money back uh to Venezuela using Bitcoin and stable coins.
(27:40) Uh and so Bitcoin's been a big theme in Venezuela for well over a decade now at this point. But the uh I think the theories about how the Maduro regime may have acquired 600,000 Bitcoin. Again, whether or not they did is yet to be determined, but the the theory is that they were doing two things. One of which was swapping gold for Bitcoin with other countries.
(28:02) They're gold-rich country. And they wanted a diversify that those gold holdings into Bitcoin because it allows them to do uh things that you can't do with gold. mainly send large amounts of money over the internet. And then the other was they were selling oil um routing around s sanctions selling oil for Tether and then converting that Tether to Bitcoin because they don't want Tether to blacklist them.
(28:30) And if you think about um them doing that and like you said, I do not like the Madur did not like the Madura regime. I'm happy that he's out of power. But if let's run with the assumption that they did acquire 600,000 Bitcoin and did it in that way, it's pretty cool because it highlights Bitcoin's value prop, which is this >> Yes.
(28:48) >> neutral reserve asset outside the purview of the five eyes, the G8, UN, whatever you want to call it. >> Yeah. I always said like to me as a businessman like the uh number one use case is like international trade with Bitcoin because it's it saves so much time and you can find enough crazy people on every continent that accept Bitcoin and it makes things like much much quicker like I I like I don't know I have it not around me like I have this in Germany we're not trusted or like in Europe in general we're not trusted with
(29:18) a shopping cart you have to put like a a coin like in there >> to release it and uh I thought to get rid of the last fiat. I will create like a a Bitcoin commemorative thing that you put in, but you can remove it immediately. Like you can crack essentially like shopping carts. And I wanted to have this made out of like brass.
(29:39) And I was looking like where do you manufacture this? And like in in China with Alibaba, I found like a a a brass molding company and uh they had like commemorative coins with like Ethereum and Monero, etc. already in their in their like product lineup. And I asked them like, "Hey, you manufacture this. Do you also accept Bitcoin?" And then they said, "Yeah, sure we do.
(30:00) " And instead of like sending a wire transfer like to to Alibaba, like it goes again like Luxembourg, Singapore, China, takes like at least 3 days and it cost me €50. Um I like just sent Bitcoin with like 22 minutes like onchain. They confirmed like the balance payment was not out yet, but like the initial payment and like in less time than it took for them to like uh would have received the money via wire transfer, they already like seen seam the tool.
(30:27) They they showed me pictures of like here this is the tool like wow this was [ __ ] fast. And of course, they could at any point could have like rucked me because there's no, you know, charge back, but they wanted to have the other 50% of the money. And uh then they like delivered uh 2,000 of these like stamped uh yeah brass uh coins to me.
(30:47) Uh and I was like, "Wow, this is like international trade." Like this was like 5 years ago. Um like why would I ever like use a wire transfer? Like people tell me, "Oh, I use transfer wise." It's like even there like you pay a ton of fees and then like the currency conversion and there's slippage and it takes time and yeah, Bitcoin just just works globally.
(31:06) >> But now we have stable coins. Stable coins are here. Why do we need Bitcoin at all? >> Yeah, that's uh like when people say like Michael Sailor has done the most for Bitcoin adoption. Um I always like challenge that idea like he has done like more than you and I probably definitely >> um I mean he he has uh again also a very big stick.
(31:30) Um but uh Paola Aruino to me like he is the one guy in the space who discovered and understands product market [ __ ] Like I'm not I don't care about Tether. like I I have no use for it myself, but I 100% understand why like everybody in Argentina uh like prefers the the the brand of dollar attached to something than like oh this volatile asset of Bitcoin like he has probably driven crypto adoption and with that also Bitcoin adoption more than any other other person I would say globally.
(32:02) I would I would co-sign that. And it's it's funny listening to him tell the origin story of Tether, the stable coin specifically, because he's like, "Ah, we had some customers asking for it, and we thought it would be like a hundred million market cap coin, so we did it." And lo and behold, now we're one of the largest buyer of US treasuries in the world.
(32:22) Uh, >> competing. Imagine like he he wrote that entirely without claude. Like he didn't vibe code it. Imagine that. like you get to create this like before LLMs. >> It is. Uh and it's it's been funny watching uh over the years the Tether FUD obviously at Bitfinexed. Um yeah, who who emerged after the 2016 bit Bitfinex hack.
(32:46) Uh >> again, I I fell for the quantum. I fell for the Bitfinex. I fell. Oh, >> you fell from >> Of course. Ah I I fully thought oh yeah like why why is there no big four audit why and then like you see okay they had like liquidation events where they paid out like 20% without like flinching an eye like no bank would have survived that like they they are fully funded like nowadays I believe that um but like back then I mean again I'm a gullible person I guess like I I believe that for for some time. Well, what was it? Uh, I
(33:21) think it was I think around the FTX. Yeah, I think the summer before the FTX blow up in summer 22, I think they had like a three-day redemption of like 20 billion Tyler and handled it. >> Yeah. >> Handled it seamlessly. >> They they are very very liquid. I I think like pound-forpound like with 200 employees or so like they are the most profitable company on on this face of the planet.
(33:46) Uh I mean what who's beating Tea as a company like in profitability? >> I don't think there's some vibe coder out there who's uh is going to fire under fast right now that's saying I'm going to be >> a company of one that uh is more profit. I think it's going to be very hard to be more profitable >> than Tether like they they're buying 8,888.
(34:04) 888888 bitcoin per quarter. It's insane. Like I mean uh I I used to work in China and there they are really like big into the number eight because brings luck >> and you had to pay like uh more if your phone number that you were assigned to had more eights like is there an association with that? Like what is the reason why? I mean, I know the the port is like 88883 like, >> but >> I'm I'm assuming there's some they're paying an homage to the Chinese uh the Chinese tradition of of admiring the number eight. That's just my assumption,
(34:40) but uh >> yeah, some some superstition like I I I would also buy 8,88 bitcoin if I could, but you know, different size pockets. the um you I mean you mentioned earlier you're excited about arcade and that's something where it's arcade or just ARC uh generally as I mean you have competing arc protocols but ARC as a as a sort of highle protocol um bringing new extensibility to Bitcoin via second layer and being interoperable lightning and other second layer protocols that's uh that's something that I've been really excited about and I think it's
(35:18) happening relatively under the radar behind the scenes not many people are paying attention, but I think the foundations for sci-fi banking stack of the future being built right in front of our eyes. Like if you combine Lightning, ecashmints, Arc, Liquid, Liquid's having its day.
(35:39) It's been around for a decade now. People are finally starting to use it. Um, and then what else is there? You have Spark as well. Uh it feels like we're getting to the point where you can really begin to build out the sovereign banking stack on top of the protocol. >> Yeah, I mean Bitcoin uh is like we have the scarcity with the limitedness through that and we can verify it and then yeah I've been using Arcadeos like the the Arc implementation from um not second BTC.
(36:09) What's their name? >> I think they're called Arc Arc Labs. Yeah, >> Arc Labs. Yeah. the wonderful like UX like with lightning always hey I have this bitcoin why can't I receive oh you need inbound liquidity like this this conversation alone like you would not pick up a normie onto anything non-custodial like they they were fine with wallet of satoshi speaking of Europa wallet of satoshi closed their custodial wallet in Europe uh like one week ago or so like the European Union asked for some uh data on the users and they said they have [ __ ] we like you
(36:42) get to withdraw your funds and you can move on to the semi-custodial world of Satoshi version >> and they're using Spark, right? Cuz they I mean they shut that in the US years ago, but they just came back with their non-custodial Spark implementation. >> So I think it's like some form of like super not private multi-y thing.
(37:02) I have not looked all too much into it. Like I I onboard people if it's custodial I onboard them with Blink. Um but uh yeah I mean it's uh again the tangent I was on was like lightning is too non-user friendly and arcade is amazing like for that I mean it's again like a beta but you can use arcade OS and uh just deposit Bitcoin and then you can pay lightning invoices and it just works.
(37:27) It's like amazing. Um the only downside you have to be like come online like every month or so which for some people is too much of a hassle I guess but um it's amazing that this works without any soft fork which is like a nice thing you know. >> Yeah and I think they're working on that liveless UX problem um both the protocols where you can just automatically push things into the next round.
(37:52) Um what uh what doesn't exist yet that you that you want to exist within Bitcoin? >> I mean so I'm facing like we work with a traditional bank here in Germany, one of the first traditional banks to adopt uh like a Bitcoin only education program. And uh there we had like a very like 3,000 people German Bitcoin conference like just in October of last year.
(38:21) Um, and there I had a ton like I had a couple workshops and I did my quit show and then like in the workshops I was like flabbergasted and taken back how many older people attended. There was like 80 people and they were like 50, 60, 70 years old into Bitcoin. I was like wow. And the number one question that came up was always how do I make sure that my kids get to my Bitcoin? And I was like, "Yeah, I'm I'm we we are kind of young, you know, like we're not really thinking about inheritance plan.
(38:54) We're not thinking about like uh writing a will or something, but Bitcoin is this special asset where like if you want to inherit it properly, like it's in self custody, like it's not on Coinbase. On Coinbase, it's like trivial to like have your death certificate and your family gets your Bitcoin.
(39:11) Uh maybe uh but like with self custody Bitcoin there are so many foot guns and like in the audience there are like so many really smart people um like asking these questions I think like there needs to be much more user friendly experience for for this kind of customer because like you can do it with a cold card with a bit box like the wallet I think is the best go-to way to do uh Bitcoin inheritance where you can just have like a multi-IG that degrades uh essentially if you're inactive for 15 months.
(39:39) Um and there I would wish but this is only possible the soft fork um that this 15month relative time lock window would be increased to like 5 years or 10 years or something like that. Um so in the event that I kick the bucket that my air just has to wait can have a pre-registered like hardware signing device and just have to plug it in like the UX there needs to improve like a little bit and yeah I mean Jack Dorsey is working on something cool there but >> sub freaks.
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(42:28) What uh what software could you need? Like some sort of covenant. So yeah, covenants would be great. Um, I mean, covenants essentially solve everything. Uh, they would make lightning better. They would make uh self custody better. Like we would have reactive instead of proactive security. Um, again, yeah, I'm uh like just [ __ ] ship CTV now, please.
(42:50) Uh, or for me like CTV just in French, like template hash, like I'm fine with all of these. Uh, but like the development and that like very slow. It's good that it's slow, I would say. Um, but, uh, yeah, I'm I'm afraid that too many people, Sailor being one of them, are like, uh, preaching the oification of Bitcoin, which, uh, in my opinion is way too early. Like, we're not there yet.
(43:17) >> The uh, we have the 20, what is it, the uh, 2064 bug. We we need a hard fork at least once. >> Yeah. I mean, eventually we need to have those. Like I'm again like we we wasted the entire year of 2025 talking about a [ __ ] nothing burger about like a data carrier size limit increase which is like there's so many strong economic incentives that this will not be used or abused and like all these whatever I'm not going to repeat Matt Cret's favorite word now but like all these things were like such a distraction. We could have
(43:50) spent so much more time on actually improving Bitcoin and we know there are bugs like BIP 54 right now like it reached also some maturity like two years ago, three years ago Matt Carell had like the um uh great consensus cleanup proposal and I think Antoine also worked on this now where like we have the inflation not inflation bug the um time warp bug um like the time warp attack that a minor can do um that has been fixed fixed on test net now this needs to be like merged into into Bitcoin like in bit 54s there's like a
(44:22) bunch of known bugs known critical bugs that can be exploited now um and we should focus on actually like discussing those instead of like oh not versus core or whatever in my opinion >> no you said CTV development slow but CTV's been sort of in an end state for years now and it's been tested and bounties >> I mean the the everybody like I made this meme uh like this saw guy Uh, welcome to my saw trap.
(44:51) Um, you're a Bitcoin developer. There's a perfectly fine covenant proposal in front of you. Your challenge is it to leave the room and leave it untouched. It's perfectly fine. And like everybody comes along. Oh, let's have tx hash. It doesn't do enough. Let's do checkick from stack 2 and this and like let's put uh template hash.
(45:11) Like there's so many like it's the engineering disease like CTV is good enough. It has been around I think like 10 years now 2015 or so. Um there's a big bounty. Nobody has come up with any way to exploit it. Um it is safe. It will improve Bitcoin dramatically. Um yeah, I I I don't know how you could be opposed to to this kind of thing. >> Well, make the cell.
(45:35) You mentioned reactive versus proactive sort of defense and security. What how would you describe those and why would you argue that reactive is preferable? So right now the way Bitcoin works, we have coins, UTXOs. So if you have a big UTXO and you spend it, you risk all of your wealth and hope that 99% comes back as a change output, which is a crazy design if you think about it.
(46:02) Like it's not like uh Ethereum is account based. You have like a number and it goes up and down, but Bitcoin is UTXO based. And like every time you spend something, you risk your entire like you dump out your entire bucket of gold and hope that the UTXO comes back. And we make sure like hardware signers check that the change output has not been tempered with that there's no like um yeah there's some kind of attack that replaces the change output.
(46:30) Um, and with all the security premise that we right now have, like I I make my living selling steel wallets, like you emboss your 1224 words into steel and that is your backup that you need. If your hardware center fails, you go back to this and you can recover everything. But what if somebody else finds it? He has access to all of your Bitcoin.
(46:48) Like that is like a single point of failure. And with a covenant, you can define this is my vault. I put my Bitcoin in here. I can define something like velocity meaning I can only spend this much of my bitcoin per day even if there is a breach like the the thief cannot steal all of the funds or I can define this is my my vault and from here I can only spend to this known address where like a hot wallet with like kraken or like another address that is also like secure there's an intermediate step and if I spend to any other address um I have this big red
(47:21) button that I can push and that will claw back the transaction and will send it to like another like 24 uh words hammered on steel like hidden underneath a tree or somewhere like you have these options where you see okay somebody's happening and I have an undo option now or I can limit the amount of Bitcoin that I can spend and all of these things if I like point them out everybody yeah I want that like everybody tells me yeah this sounds great I want that how how do we achieve this and we jump through a lot
(47:51) of hoops right now with like um these decaying multiix with miniscript. Um, just having a covenant would make this much easier, much smaller, and yeah, the much better. >> Yeah, I've always been partial to James Ourn's framing of it. Obviously, he had OPV vault, which looked at CTV and was like, "Okay, if people are afraid of check template verify because they think it's going to bring too much, let's just focus on the vaulting aspect and bring it to Bitcoin and make it so that his framing was make it so exchanges can
(48:26) never get hacked again." And I think that's if that's exactly what it does or that's one of the products of implementing something like OPV vault is you have the potential to create these uh sort of transaction structures that make it very hard to get hack or not to get hacked but to uh lose bitcoin after getting hacked.
(48:48) Um that seems like something that is uh very obvious like we should all want that but we have this social >> aspect of Bitcoin development that um throws a wrench in that which is good. It's a it's a double-edged sword. You want that sort of rough consensus um gridlock. >> What is that exist? What is it? >> What is rough consensus? >> That's a great question.
(49:10) I think we're still trying to figure it out. I think it depends on what you're trying to get into Bitcoin, right? Rough consensus is if all the graveyards are agreed and uh then the plebs podcasters are also on board that that is rough. >> Well, let's dive into that. Like how how do you view it? >> Um as a pleb slop podcaster that has uh deferred to the great beards in the past, what what else am I supposed to do? >> That's that's the million-dollar question.
(49:45) like uh I would so I see it as my um relative to like educate as many people and have this like uh not astroturf like what is the grassroots like people want this and people institutions want this and if there's enough yeah incentive uh from a monetary perspective um people again you vote by having bitcoin like if you are an economic player in this you can you can vote and be vocal about it um and then we can achieve like another soft fork I think.
(50:20) Um but for that we need proper code, proper tests, benchmarks, fuzzing and a lot of check boxes need to be ticked. Uh and the problem with Bitcoin is that every four years we have this big hinging event. and a lot of new people come in and if we talk for four years more new people come in and they say Bitcoin is perfect and then we just start from a new.
(50:45) So I think um yeah to to achieve another soft we need to figure out a way to get everybody on board in like one or two years to signal for something. Um but yeah I'm I'm kind of bearish on that. >> I am too. it is. I mean, I'm also an advocate for covenants. I know some people may find that blasphemous, but I think having been around for a while and understanding that reactive versus proactive um sort of security posture that you just described, I mean, I think that's objectively preferable in my mind.
(51:23) And I think there's a lot of people who look at the magnitude of the changes that came with SegWit and Taproot and they have shell shock or post-traumatic stress syndrome from the unintended consequences of those upgrades and they assume that um something similar may happen with any other future soft fork, whether it be CTV, CAT, whatever it may be, which is not to say there isn't any unintended consequences that may arise, but I think people do not appreciate how relatively small of a change something like CTV is to segit or tap routt.
(51:59) >> Yeah. Then again like a block size increase is like three lines of code and like one parameter. So that is never a good uh indicator. It's just a teeny tiny bit of code. Um, but yeah, like the the unintended consequences. I hear this a lot. And to quote my my favorite shitcoiner, James Lop, um, like the unintended consequences are not quantifiable um, if you do it and they're also they are not quantifiable if you don't do it.
(52:28) Like we don't know if you don't do this upgrade, maybe Bitcoin like apathy will kill it or like uh people uh will move on to other things. Um and therefore because you can't quantify both of them like they even out. So unintended consequences always exist. Um and that's why we move slowly and have a lot of eyes on there so that like they are not uh yeah large large mistakes being forked into Bitcoin.
(52:58) That's why I'm also like not uh all too keen on having a a quantum uh fork that is now with some yeah non-h hardened uh yeah quantum postquantum algorithms or whatever uh like we we need to take time and we need to improve it because uh there will be a lot of tech that if you know introduce like a new postquantum scheme that is way too heavy and way too difficult to verify.
(53:22) Um, so yeah, >> I just had Jonas uh Nick and Mel Kunav on to talk about their hashbased um signatures, the the research paper. >> It shrinks. >> Yeah. >> And I don't think people understand or appreciate like how much you need like you you're going to need to overhaul every wallet software that exists like cuz >> like standards like PSBT are going to have to change.
(53:51) It's it's not like uh it's not like you just get quantum resistant addresses. You can use everything that's existed before. And that was the most disheartening thing about the narrative and the the uh main character uh syndrome sort of forcing itself into the conversation. It's just like nobody's talking about this. It's like we've been talking about it for years.
(54:10) >> Yes. >> Like Steve Lee had an entire conference and invited you and you didn't come like Um because I mean >> if the rush to upgrade is I would argue riskier than um being slow uh because who like you mentioned earlier like who knows when quantum is actually going to manifest and you can really >> there are so many >> there's so many caneries that will drop before like ECDSA is threatened like again we know with the Snowden leagues the NSA is working on quantum computers for quite some time and you can't assume
(54:46) that not everything will be out in the public. Not every achievement, but with all these other companies, these these private companies like Google and Scantum and like Microsoft and like these small onion on Q like as soon as they factor like a larger number and they need like a a bridge loan from a VC, they will come back and like look look what we did.
(55:08) Like they will they will telegraph like their advances. Oh, I'm just kicking my lap here. Um and like we have more than a decade at least and in that time again journalists like uh and and Tim Roofing they they improved on the postquantum algorithms that the National Institute of Standardization and Technology suggested and said like yeah we have these I think they call Sphinx algorithms and then they said hey we take this out and we can shrink them make them smaller.
(55:36) They're still way too large to to have like proper throughput in a block, but you see there is steady progress. And then there's like Lara Shikman like a a lot of other like really smart people that are not VCs are working on it. Give them some time and do not distract them with like [ __ ] discussions. >> Yeah.
(55:55) >> So I mean that was the uh the illuminating thing from my conversation with Jonas and Male. just like the wallet like particularly if you have low power relatively low power hardware wallets like the amount of time it's going to take to sign those signatures is going to be um significantly longer than it takes today and if you've ever done something like a DLC >> um even on a mobile wallet and you know the signature sort of rounds for that take a minute up to two minutes sometimes >> yeah I mean like a multisig with like 50
(56:25) co-signers or something like you can test it like you realize uh I mean MDK is is not cheap. It's like a security. This is the design decision to not have like a a fully functioning computer in there. You could add more oomph into this of course, but like you want to have it purpose-built and now it's purpose-built for that, but for postquantum like we have to change like mining QR codes, wallets, like nodes, like there's a ton and ton of things and we need upgrade hooks so like everybody's on board and like nothing
(56:54) breaks. Um it's these things where you realize yeah a decentralized system has a lot of advantages but also a lot of disadvantages if you want to like move into one direction quickly like a bank can do key rotation a bank can easily become postquantum and like not a weekend maybe but like it's possible with the centralized exchange with Bitcoin there will be like yeah a two-year >> process wallet software has been built up over some projects more than a decade and they're literally going to have to just throw out all the uh throw out the
(57:27) engine essentially and rebuild from scratch. >> Yeah, I mean Jonas and like they're working on on the secp 256k1 library like lip sec. Yeah. uh that is uh the the yeah central part of like every like node and wallet. Uh and that I think is an amazing work and like a lot of a lot of people don't know this and they don't know about like who Jonas Nick is.
(57:57) I think I always like amazed that like these are the people that keep like a low profile and these are the actual builders and not the people that are the loudest on Twitter. I was very uh very impressed with him. I think it was the first time we've definitely the first time we recorded. I'm pretty sure it's the first time we ever met too.
(58:14) But he's like he can explain things very easily. He is very personable. Um you can tell he cares deeply about this and understands the uh the third or second third order effects of these changes that people are flippantly trying to uh rush uh Bitcoiners into. >> Yeah. I mean, so in Germany, we have a Bitcoin community and they recently made uh because I've had I've had people um on RHR rabbit hole recap.
(58:44) I've had people zap us and uh pump the uh the German speaking Bitcoin podcast. How do you say it? >> Onswigans means 21. Like ain is one and swans is 20in and >> Swansick. Okay. >> In Swansick, >> you can just say 21 people will know. But yeah, like we have this community and an artist made like a trading card game and made like 21 like Bitcoin personalities.
(59:19) And for some reason I'm one of those which is like undeserved. But like Jonas Nick has one, Christian Deca has one, a lot of people like Gigi has one. And I think it's like these are the the actual people doing stuff. Um, again, not VCs, not mechanics on on Twitter. >> Yeah, mechanics on Twitter. Um, what um what else should we cover here? What do you what are you looking forward to in 2026? What do you think the priority should be? Uh, so I I haven't made my prediction list yet, but I really really want uh I don't have my hat in in reaching distance right now. I
(59:54) want to see like a pardon or clemency for Keon and and Bill. Um like yeah uh I like again Kon like celebrated Christmas and then I saw like I mean he must be happy to go into prison because the last two days before he had to be arraigned like he was arguing with mechanic on Twitter and say like I mean this can't be it like the last days in freedom like he has to like argue with people on Twitter and like justify things and oh Nazis on your side like shut the [ __ ] up like I I Donald Trump to be cool um and you know send a
(1:00:34) message that like writing code even if it is uh abused uh by criminals um is not a crime like you're not responsible if you write privacy software you're not responsible um if people abuse uh like technology um that's my my only wish for 2026 the rest you know I don't know Bitcoin can go down to 30,000 and shake out all the treasury companies I'm fine with that.
(1:01:01) Um, but I'm I really want to see um, yeah, Trump doing another solid similar to Ross. Do you think the onus is on the industry in the United States to preserve from a legal perspective, I guess, preserve the ability to use Bitcoin? Like it doesn't seem good in Europe right now. I mean uh so I have to say the the laws around Bitcoin in Germany are better than in the United States.
(1:01:29) Uh but that is I think purely purely by accident. So uh whereas uh you will always be tax liable in the event of you like selling or using bitcoin uh in Germany uh if I hold it for one year I'm I'm free. There's no capital gains. I can just spend it and that is like really really nice. And uh you have uh right to to your privacy. Um so I'm fine with that.
(1:01:51) But that is uh born not on purpose. I think it was done on accident. Like they just they're talking about, you know, let's get rid of this. Um people are speculating and making money on that and we need a cut and they want to remove this one year holding limit uh and maybe even backdated it.
(1:02:10) But um yeah, so I agree it is uh good to have people in the White House. Um I mean I wish they were more pure. I wish they wouldn't do so many crypto scams on the side. Um but uh as long as United States um allows for Bitcoin to thrive, game theory is at play, other nations will not, you know, forbid it. Uh and that is again, yeah, America can be a shining light.
(1:02:44) Yeah. No, it is this weird uh weird transitionary period at least from my perspective that we're in where again the suits the big guys the nation states are coming and it's like h what are you going to do with Bitcoin? And going back to the conversation like softworks covenants specifically if nation states do step in in size in the next few years like will soft forks be impossible? I think for sure.
(1:03:09) >> Yeah. I mean I have this article and I think Shinobi has never published it. Um why nation states uh need covenants or rather people living in nation states that have adopted Bitcoin need covenants because one of the key advantages of gold is that you cannot take a pallet of gold onto a helicopter when you flee the South American country.
(1:03:32) Whereas if you amass your bitcoin u of the money that you take out of uh your your your population um that is very easy to take with you if you if you flee uh to I don't know I mean it has happened that some kind of dictator has rugged a population and stolen money um by like transferring it in a Swiss bank account. Um, Bitcoin makes it so much more easy and there you could have a proper like covenant where like okay as long as you're in power you get to sign uh if you um yeah get voted out uh your your key will be rotated out. Uh, and yeah,
(1:04:09) there I've written an article about like we need covenants for nation state adopting too. Like the next article needs to be like we need covenants to prevent quantum like we need to attach it somehow uh to to fork in covenants. I think >> well I think you're uh you're touching on something that I think is very important and something that Bitcoiners really need to get better at is framing these things.
(1:04:33) I think of one thing that I'm passionate about and would love to see is Payjoin get implemented widely, particularly with large exchanges. And um I know a lot of the exchanges outside of Bull Bitcoin um shy away from it because they're like, "Oh, what like the privacy thing is too much." It's like, "No, you just frame it as transaction batching.
(1:04:54) We need to save shareholder capital by being more efficient when we spend bitcoin on chain when we're bitcoin. >> Not only that >> to to our users. Um not only that >> framing is very important. >> Yeah. Yeah. Like like bip 77 like I mean the bull bitcoin integration is great. Um who was it? Um there was an article with the bitcoin policy institute.
(1:05:15) Gerald Gerald Glick Gerald Glickman wrote something and it was really like an interesting spin on that where he's saying exchanges should be um mandatory um coin joining and offiscating funds because you have a uh from a banking law perspective you have to have a a certain level of privacy.
(1:05:39) um you are mandated as a bank to have private uh customer funds and with Bitcoin currently they like grossly reusing addresses and like they not doing these things and he had like a very interesting article like couple years ago like four years ago or so I need to find it I'll send it to you um where he's like arguing exchanges need to coin join by law.
(1:06:02) Yeah, it's just this aversion to private I mean I know why the large governments of the world don't like privacy because they are losing control of many aspects of uh their ability to rule as they print more money go into more debt and begin to lose the narrative in the u the realm of the social um but I think that's the most disheartening thing is like we have the potential >> like I said earlier especially with these second layer protocols maturing to build like a completely new banking stack on top of the Bitcoin protocol and it's
(1:06:39) desperately needed in this day and age. I think the banking infrastructure is completely antiquated and not suit for purpose in the digital age and for some reason or another. I think mainly because they worry about losing control or being hindered from actually building out this sci-fi banking stack. I just dropped off. I'm back. Sorry.
(1:07:03) >> Yeah, >> just you cut you cut out a little earlier. >> The when you're giving your whole coin join spiel, I only caught the tail end, but uh luckily all this is being recorded uh recorded locally, so it'll look good in post. Yeah. So, um yeah, coin joining the the UX is great. Another thing that would improve it is CISA like signature aggregation.
(1:07:32) Um has been discussed for quite some time. Uh um if we implemented that I think Greg Ross said it would be cheaper uh than a regular transaction to do coin joints with uh FISA. You'll see that it's funny like going back to the quantum thing too. It's like how much of this stuff are we going to focus on? And I was like, "Oh, we have to do quantum resistant addresses.
(1:07:54) " That completely I don't know if you could do CISA CISA with quantum resistant addresses, but if you could, that would make more sense, too. >> Yeah. We We need a a Bitcoin PR department to to spin these things. >> That is Yeah. Who should do? I mean, I don't know if you're being facitious there, but I think uh these things do need to be uh articulated to the broader market in better ways.
(1:08:28) >> Yeah, it's it's often times you see uh very smart, bright developers. >> We need a translation services for for Bitcoin. >> Yeah, we need uh autism to ADIQ translation services. Um yeah, more and better communications also like a learning from 2025. Uh if communication uh can be improved, um lots of drama can be avoided.
(1:08:55) >> Yeah, there's a lot of drama in 2025. Here's the hoping that uh there's a bare market in drama in 2026, but I won't be holding my breath for that. >> I guarantee you there will be more. I'm really really bullish on trauma. um drama and trauma. But um >> yeah. >> Yeah. >> What what are your hopes for 2026? >> Um selfishly, I hope that uh that Bitcoin collateralized residential mortgages become a thing here in the United States. I think that would be massive.
(1:09:31) But uh >> Okay. >> I think uh no, I mean it was a big theme in 2025. never wrote about it, talked about it a lot. But again, as you may be able to tell, I think this emergence of these interoperable second layer protocols is really powerful and fascinating to me. And I guess my hope for 2026 is uh instead of quabbling about different protocol changes uh getting distracted by uh op return or quantum resistance.
(1:10:08) begin people begin focusing on like, okay, how can we leverage these second layers to create more extendable Bitcoin user experiences and build cooler um end products at the end of the day that make Bitcoin more useful for individuals? >> Are you bullish on Citria? >> Uh yeah, I I could I mean it am I going to use Citria? Probably not.
(1:10:38) Uh >> I mean as soon as there will be a poly market cali prediction market type on Bitcoin and I think like with Citria you can build something like this. I think there will be a very big inflow into Bitcoin. Um and there will be a lot of you know prediction markets not only funded by Rob Hamilton but like actual prediction markets like too. Yeah.
(1:11:01) >> Well like what's wrong with something like predicts right? like do you need to do all that >> predict is like custodial. >> Yeah. >> And with like in EVM type of layer 2 which I'm always very impressed like Robin Liners is a close friend of mine um and I I really like appreciate what what they are building there like Alvin and Citria and like all these things that I didn't think were possible to build on Bitcoin without any changes to to the code.
(1:11:34) Um I think it's very cippher punk. I again I I'm not interested in any whatever virtual machine. Um but yeah prediction markets uh I'm very surprised how big they have become. Uh and these things yeah I think that they will come this year. >> Are you surprised? >> Why are you surprised? It was predicted that prediction markets would become a thing.
(1:12:00) This is uh it's a long >> aaited there's this great quote by Michael Sailor I think in 2018 where he's like denigrating Bitcoin says like oh Bitcoin is a fad it will have the same future as um online gambling and online gambling is bigger than ever as is Bitcoin like he's right on the money like he had the wrong he took the wrong under on that bat.
(1:12:25) Um uh I'm I'm not a like yeah I played the the tonebased poker tournament uh poorly um and I'm not really into gambling but uh I see what's like it's a very nice way of um finding truth because if people put their money where their mouth is like I trust those polls more than like a general Twitter poll let's say. >> Agreed. And that's what it was.
(1:12:46) Actually, I'm not sure if you saw it, but Brian Armstrong came out, I believe it was yesterday or the day before, and people were saying like, "Hey, you guys just recreated gambling." And obviously, yes, to an extent, some of these prediction markets are gambling. But he acknowledged like, "Hey, this is actually a way to discover truth faster because you have insiders who are financially motivated to leak information playing on these prediction markets." And we've seen that come true.
(1:13:12) and you have a bunch of people >> saying, "Oh my god, this is uh this is uh this is terrible. We don't like insider trading in traditional markets." And it's like true. Like I don't like when politicians insider trade off of information um that they they glean from subcommittee meetings that are not public.
(1:13:33) Um but I think this is different. I think the dynamics >> is it more that you don't want them to have it or is it more that you would be fine if everybody could do it? >> Exactly. >> Because I feel like >> in a free market like again there is no such thing as uh like insider trading like in a truly truly like doesn't exist anywhere in the world but like in a truly free market I think uh yeah insider trading is just called trading.
(1:13:58) >> Yeah. I think you articulate it very well. My thoughts on it is like as long as everybody can do it, um it should be >> beneficial. And like you saw it with uh over the weekend with Maduro, there was an insider who hopped on the Poly Market, a fat trade and made a bunch of money. >> And that I was I was looking in my in my signal chat whether or not I was invited to the Pete Hexath Maduro signal group chat, but I wasn't.
(1:14:27) >> What would you say if you if you hopped in that group chat? I mean, I would like would be a fly on the wall and then I would uh put a outsized bet and then I would do the Dennis Porter style huge breaking and blow the whistle as soon as we have like internal confirmation like uh that the eagle has landed or something.
(1:14:47) I don't know. I would I would monetize it. >> I I I think I agree with you. I think prediction markets are going to be continue to grow whether or not they manifest on Bitcoin. I think I would not I mean I think they should manifest on Bitcoin and I think ultimately they will but I I think more broadly people don't understand still don't grasp the profoundity of what's happening right now and don't grasp how this is going to change the world like right now we're seeing it in dinks and dunks like one-off events but once that hits scale
(1:15:17) and the people are conditioned to go to prediction markets to make bets um about certain events uh with particularly insiders with knowledge of these events, it's going to really change the dynamics of how information flows and how the world actually operates. Yeah. I mean, one of my favorite stories, um I'm not sure if I'm supposed to share this, but I'm going to do it anyways.
(1:15:48) Uh like remember the uh electric uh money um documentary about who Satoshi like HBO had this documentary like >> two three years ago. >> It's Peter Todd. >> Um and everybody says oh it's Adam back it's Hal Finny. It's uh Lanzaman uh and there was a polymer market and there was one very outsized bet on Peter Todd and with like documentaries that have been recorded months in advance um people that have been part of this documentary had some insider knowledge uh and yeah some people you know do bet on themselves which you know
(1:16:28) was I was a big fan when when I learned that like don't hate the player hate the game uh Like why would you bet on something like I mean I get betting on like an election where you like everybody knows the outcome at a certain point in the future but why would you bet on something that has been decided in the past like movies are generally not like live streamed like there's like an entire production team that knows what happened there but yeah >> yeah it's a brave new world it's a brave new world Chris where um anybody so
(1:16:59) curious find out more about you what you're working on seedor bitance. >> Yeah. Uh follow me on on on Twitter at coinjoin. Um uh I I uh post about my work. I do uh weird acquired taste memes. Um you can write me an email chriscedor.io or at bit insurance.io. Um always happy to talk about Bitcoin.
(1:17:26) Always uh yeah, up for a conversation there. >> Well, keep it up. Like I said, I've uh I've been appreciating your game from across the pond here. It's uh it's very good. >> My star rising just saying >> I don't know if it you're you're very tall. I don't know how how high it can rise from here, but um yeah, thank you for doing this. This is fun.
(1:17:47) >> Thank you. Thank you for having me, Marty. All right. >> All right. Peace and love, freaks. Thank you for listening to this episode of TFTC. If you made it this far, I imagine you got some value out of the episode. If so, please share it far and wide with your friends and family. We're looking to get the word out there.
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