In October 2010, Core developer Jeff Garzik wrote a “patch” which aimed to “match PayPal’s average transaction rate”. He published it on the Bitcoin Talk forum, where moderator Theymos and Satoshi quickly warned everyone that the code is incompatible with the existing consensus rules of the network – running it would cause users to operate on a parallel chain which is no longer Bitcoin.

However, Satoshi did make a statement which led some into thinking that increasing the block size for scalability purposes is only a matter of time: “We can phase in a change later if we get closer to needing it”. But in the context of requiring this upgrade, he said “if” instead of “when”.

In practice, Satoshi created a consensus rule which fixed Bitcoin’s maximum block size at 1 MB. This limitation became an inconvenience to some business owners who wanted to build their infrastructure or at least settle some of their transactions on the Bitcoin blockchain.

By virtue of the liquidity they were bringing, some business owners considered that the Bitcoin network should upgrade to accommodate their needs – regardless of the centralization concerns which most likely were also convenient to them despite being against the purpose of the Bitcoin project. So instead of figuring out how to make Bitcoin work for their particular use cases with optimizations (such as internal ledgers, transaction batching, and sidechains), they wanted the network itself to change according to their needs.

In the coming years, a pretty dramatic scaling debate took place. Between 2014 and 2017, four major proposals have been made:

• Bitcoin XT (later integrated in BIP 101, which sought to double the block size every 2 years until the year 2036, when the maximum block size would have been 8 gigabytes);
• Bitcoin Classic, which aimed for a more conservative one-time block size doubling to 2 megabytes;
• Bitcoin Unlimited, which allowed the miners to decide the block size;
• SegWit2X, which increases the block size to 2 megabytes and also activates SegWit (the scaling proposal that Bitcoin Core developers proposed as an upgrade which mainly fixes the transaction malleability issue);

These proposals sound really good, except that they effectively make the network more centralized due to the increasing requirements for storage, internet speed, and processing power. Broadcasting one megabyte across the network at an average rate of 10 minutes, while having sovereign nodes store a few hundred megabytes worth of mempool data is feasible even on a Raspberry Pi that gets paired with a poor internet connection.

Arbitrarily increasing this number comes with greater hardware requirements – and according to what we’ve learned from other projects, eventually Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google and Microsoft Azure ultimately become the optimal solutions for handling all on-chain operations. The switch from sovereign self-validation to trust in industrial-level computers is against the spirit of the Bitcoin project and effectively exposes the network to government attacks.

Then there’s also the fee market argument: as the block reward gets reduced in half every 210.000 blocks (approximately four years), the transaction fees must pay the miners enough money to cover their equipment and electricity costs. So to maintain the security of Bitcoin, block space needs to become expensive. Deciding that it should be cheap threatens to compromise network incentives.

Some argued that by increasing the block size, the amount of transactions in a block would also increase. Therefore, Bitcoin’s security budget should get covered. But this is not a certainty – with smaller blocks, there is constant demand regardless of market phases which keeps the miners going; if the blocks are big and there isn’t much activity, then the miners take a financial loss and will switch off.

The block size debate wasn’t only technical, as it also acquired a political dimension. As Chris DeRose argued during season 10 of the Bitcoin Takeover podcast, it’s likely that some people were angry at the Core development and wanted to put themselves in a higher position of power.

Regardless of the intentions, a hard fork (changing the consensus rules in a way which pushes everyone to update their client) was problematic because it would effectively divide the community. No proposal got enough traction from the community – so after three years of debates and Scaling Bitcoin conferences, no solution received enough support.

Some thought that the change was irreversible and premature. Others were concerned about a political takeover that would centralize Bitcoin. Meanwhile, the big blockers camp started implying that not changing Bitcoin is financially beneficial to companies like Blockstream (which develops the Liquid sidechain and the c-lightning client for Lightning network) and encourages short-term use of altcoins.

Unfortunately, a hard fork did happen on August 1st 2017. The big block crowd (consisting of XT, Classic, and Unlimited developers and supporters) has embraced the new Bitcoin Cash chain, whereas the users backing the real and decentralized Bitcoin have activated SegWit via UASF (user-activated soft fork).

A soft fork is a network upgrade which doesn’t break consensus. Activating it is completely optional, but at some point in the future it’s expected to become the norm. At scale, it accomplishes the same goals of a hard fork – as all users eventually update their node software to include the changes. But those who don’t want to run the new code are free to opt out while remaining on the same network as everyone else.

From a technical point of view, SegWit is a masterpiece of elegant design. It’s exactly the kind of code that should be expected from the people who spend the entirety of their day working with Bitcoin code. Theoretically, it can make blocks extend up to 4 megabytes during times of high demand. But practically speaking, 2 megabytes is more common.

To date, the biggest Bitcoin block ever mined is number 682482, which Poolin discovered on the 8th of May 2021. It has a size of 2.42 megabytes and still exceeds the average size of a BCH block (as the Bitcoin Cash network, despite enabling big blocks, didn’t get traction and has very little demand for block space). This situation enabled the rather funny question “Which Bitcoin has the big blocks, after all?”.

Bitcoin didn’t really eat popcorn during this dramatic phase of its existence. But it did remain decentralized and accessible to anyone around the world. Second layers like the Lightning network and sidechains like Liquid, RSK, Statechains and Drivechains play the scalability role just fine. They settle transactions faster and at lower costs, but lack the security of the base layer – which is a tradeoff that everyone must consider depending on the amount that they’re sending.

But for Bitcoin’s resistance against centralizing hard forks, we must thank the conservative and stubborn Core developers (especially Greg Maxwell, Pieter Wuille, Johnson Lau, Eric Lombrozo, and Luke Dashjr), as well as every user who supported SegWit, Lightning, Liquid, RSK, Counterparty, Omni, Statechains, Drivechains, and every other proposal which helps Bitcoin scale and/or acquire more functionalities. This comic is for all of you.

But as of November 16th 2021, we finally know the name of John Carvalho’s company: Synonym. During the Adopting Bitcoin conference in El Salvador, the former Xotika CEO and Bitrefill CCO has revealed his plan for hyperbitcoinization – a phenomenon that he doesn’t consider to be “inevitable” without the development of peer to peer applications and protocols that facilitate it.

This is the philosophy which gave birth to Synonym, a British Virgin Islands- based company whose ambitions extend towards creating peer to peer applications and protocols on top of Bitcoin’s Lightning network.

Synonym’s launch product is Slashtags: a Chrome-compatible wallet whose ambitions extend beyond transacting bitcoins. With it, users can sign up to different websites without a password and through an ecosystem which puts them in control of all data. John Carvalho has been speaking about solving internet centralization and the identity problem, so this might just become part of the solution. More information about the Slashtags extension and the core application can be found in the corresponding GitHub repositories.

John’s podcast, “The Biz”, also uses Synonym’s development. And according to the available data, the code which enables listeners to unlock every minute of the recording through a microtransaction will be open-sourced sometime in the third quarter of 2022. This can be a game-changer for content creators who have already built an audience that’s willing to pay, as monetization can be made directly, interactively, without the need for custodians, and without ads.

On the Synonym roadmap we can also see a Bitcoin wallet which seeks to integrate advanced features (such as boosting transactions that’s stuck in the mempool through RBF or CPFP) in the most basic and comprehensive user interface. This wallet will also enable the use of Lightning network tokens, including Tether (USDT). Under the hood, there’s also a free encrypted backup service – and though I understand the target audience for it, it is not something I would personally use.

Perhaps the biggest and boldest claim of the Synonym wallet is “Web 3 without shitcoins”. The app will make use of the account, identity, contact book, and feeds that you also access in Slashtags.

On the long terms, the ambitions extend towards enabling the monetization of files, the creation of social networks and publishing platforms, as well as the creation of a “web of trust”.

Given Lightning’s elegant design and excellent scalability via client-side validation (only the parties involved in a transaction verify the data, there’s no need for the entire network to do it as in the case of blockchains), all of these seem doable. However, the scope of Synonym’s ambitions is great enough to architecture a new internet that’s built on top of Lightning.

Previously, we’ve had similar but singular attempts to solve centralization, privacy, monetization, and scalability issues with Lightning. Examples include Joule for identity, Y’Alls for publishing, Breez for a simple non-custodial experience, and RGB Spectrum for tokens. What Synonym aims to do is to unify all of these ideas under a decentralized and open source umbrella, for the purpose of making the user onboarding process more intuitive.

What is still unclear is the ways in which Synonym is going to monetize its operations. As of November 16th 2021, the team consists of six people (interestingly, Bitfinex and Tether CTO Paolo Ardoino also acts as CTO in Synonym) and seeks to hire four more. It’s going to be interesting to see how the operations scale and to which extent there are return of investment expectations from Tether Holdings and Fulgur Ventures.

A way through which Synonym can become profitable is Blocktank – a Lightning Service Provider (LSP) which allows businesses, apps and platforms to purchase LN liquidity. But at this early stage, it’s hard to tell if all revenue can be guaranteed by this service.

Support Bitcoin Takeover

The Bitcoin Takeover project is sponsored by Vaultoro, the exchange which only allows you to trade with hard money. This is not financial advice, but on Vaultoro you can use bitcoin to hedge against inflation and switch to gold to avoid volatility. The trades are seamless and you can always switch to another asset to maximize the value of your investment. 

Furthermore, Vaultoro also publishes monthly glass books to prove that it holds 100% of the user’s assets and doesn’t engage in fractional reserve banking. CEO Joshua Scigala is also a very committed and principled bitcoiner who supports the Lightning network and really wants to see it blossom (which is why he also sponsors the giveaway from the BTCTKVR Radio broadcasts). 

If you would like to sign up to Vaultoro, you can use my referral link.

Also, if you found this article useful and you would like to reward me for my time and research, there are two ways you can do it and they can be complimentary:

1. Sign up to the Bitcoin Takeover newsletter, subscribe to the YouTube channel, follow BTCTKVR on Twitter and Instagram, and listen/subscribe to the Bitcoin Takeover Podcast on your favorite platform. You can also download the BTCTKVR magazine for free and print your own copies for personal use, meetups, and conferences.
2. Send a donation to one of the following addresses:

Bitcoin base layer: bc1qvheg2jfwsychqggtewdjaj4adwfqxxnxr35pfq

Liquid sidechain: VJL638FWbZFxU3Pr8HxN8zp4PxUqqUtXoJfDq8ho3X298MTiGfLj47cpSP8fyBRGwDL1kujuHNx2UG3L

Lightning Network: https://btctakeover.lnbits.com/lnurlp/2

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/bitcointakeover

If you make a donation and want to have your name featured in the Hall of Patrons, then please send me an e-mail.

However, a second batch is on the way in larger supply and at a more accessible price point. Foundation Devices will release 2500 Passport hardware wallets for $199 each, with free delivery for US customers (international buyers will have to pay the extra shipping costs). Preorders are already open, and the estimated delivery date is sometime in February 2022.

Foundation Devices also mentions that Batch 2 features “numerous improvements to the electromechanical design and manufacturing process” – meaning that the feedback provided by early adopters has helped make the product evolve into an all-around better security device. Buyers of the “Founder’s Edition” who want to get their hands on this revised Passport will also benefit from a 21% discount.

And speaking of feedback, the Boston security start-up ran a survey which asked customers for feedback on existing and desired features. Depending on the responses, it’s likely to see new options and functionalities getting added in future firmware updates.

The Passport is a PSBT (BIP 174) hardware wallet which operates in an air-gapped way which separates transaction signing from network broadcasting (learn about sending PSBT transactions from my Wasabi wallet guide). With the Passport, you can sign transactions by scanning QR codes or by inserting PSBT data via micro-SD card.

Unlike Coinkite’s Coldcard wallet and KeyStone’s Vault, Foundation Devices’ hardware wallet runs on 100% free open source code and has a snappier and intuitive user experience. Its form factor also makes it look like a mobile phone, which makes the device more discreet and less distinguishable in public situations. Another one of its pros is the physical keyboard, which makes typing seed words and passphrases both accurate and speedy.

However, when compared to its direct competitors, the Passport is more expensive. While Foundation Devices’ hardware wallet can be bought for $200, the Coldcard is $129.97 and the KeyStone Pro is $169. It’s definitely the more premium-looking device of the trio, but then again the DIY Seedsigner costs only $50 to build and has the same features (camera, SD card, PSBT), free open source software.

Foundation Devices’ Passport is definitely a worthy contender on the hardware wallet market, and stands out with its combination of open source software, premium build, and accessible user interface. You don’t need an instruction manual to use one, you only need to understand how Bitcoin transactions work and what the device does. Now that the price has dropped by $100, it’s going to be interesting to see how consumers react and how quickly the stock of 2500 Passports gets depleted.

Furthermore, there’s always room to add power user features such as Shamir Secret Sharing (SLIP 39), support for sidechains, and even automation for certain transactions (such as JoinMarket coordination, as described by Blockstream’s Lawrence Nahum). For now, it’s the improved and uncompromising version of the Coldcard wallet. But in the future, it can easily promote into a league of its own.

Support Bitcoin Takeover

The Bitcoin Takeover project is sponsored by Vaultoro, the exchange which only allows you to trade with hard money. This is not financial advice, but on Vaultoro you can use bitcoin to hedge against inflation and switch to gold to avoid volatility. The trades are seamless and you can always switch to another asset to maximize the value of your investment. 

Furthermore, Vaultoro also publishes monthly glass books to prove that it holds 100% of the user’s assets and doesn’t engage in fractional reserve banking. CEO Joshua Scigala is also a very committed and principled bitcoiner who supports the Lightning network and really wants to see it blossom (which is why he also sponsors the giveaway from the BTCTKVR Radio broadcasts). 

If you would like to sign up to Vaultoro, you can use my referral link.

Also, if you found this article useful and you would like to reward me for my time and research, there are two ways you can do it and they can be complimentary:

1. Sign up to the Bitcoin Takeover newsletter, subscribe to the YouTube channel, follow BTCTKVR on Twitter and Instagram, and listen/subscribe to the Bitcoin Takeover Podcast on your favorite platform. You can also download the BTCTKVR magazine for free and print your own copies for personal use, meetups, and conferences.
2. Send a donation to one of the following addresses:

Bitcoin base layer: bc1qxhz2ma5f7cazj8tx33y9l0vdywgfzugf0yhr2k

Liquid sidechain: VJL638FWbZFxU3Pr8HxN8zp4PxUqqUtXoJfDq8ho3X298MTWea6vQppQrY6FfwNF3bYhraLZmqV47aZ9

Lightning Network: https://btctakeover.lnbits.com/lnurlp/2

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/bitcointakeover

If you make a donation and want to have your name featured in the Hall of Patrons, then please send me an e-mail.

Dickerson, best known for her work at Lightning Labs (where she acted as Vice President of Business Operations), sees a lot of potential in video games as a medium which increases bitcoin adoption. Her self-confessed interest in snail farming and pigeon racing projects the kind of zaniness to which video gamers get attracted. And as a way to double down on gaming culture and fun, Dickerson is set address fans of Bitcoin Bounce and Turbo 84 on Friday, November 11th 2021, 9PM CET, on the company’s Twitch account.

THNDR Games is best known for hits such as Bitcoin Bounce (read my review here) and Turbo 84. They are available on all mobile platforms and feature a very unique approach to attracting players’ engagement: every game session offers tickets that players can collect, and at the end of every week there is a draw which determines how much bitcoin everyone has won. There are small rewards for everyone, so there is always an incentive to return, play more, earn a higher score, and collect more tickets.

In Bitcoin Bounce, you play as a ball which must bounce across platforms while avoiding dangers such as pitfalls and spikes. You encounter special bonuses (shields and speed boosters), as well as teleporting portals and springs that take you farther. The goal is to make it as far as you can, in a side scrolling action which becomes addictive very fast.

In Turbo 84, you drive a retro vehicle on 3 lanes. The goal is to go as fast as you can while avoiding obstacles. Speed boosters will make your experience more thrilling, while all sorts of roadblocks jeopardize your attempt to reach 100 mph (the game’s challenge) and beyond. It has a synthwave vibe, with shades of pink and violet, as well as stylized menus that make you think of the vintage arcade era.

In both games, high scores and collecting many tickets will help you earn bitcoin amounts. The skill-luck balance provides a mix of certainty and uncertainty that always makes you come back for more. Watch out, these video games are highly addictive!

How will Desiree Dickerson’s leadership impact THNDR Games? Are we going to see major improvements in the existing games? Will the studio release new titles? Will major Lightning companies get involved in organizing tournaments with attractive prizes, in order to increase bitcoin adoption among the video gaming community? It all remains to be seen. What we know for certain is that the games are about to get a popularity boost, thanks to Dickerson’s popularity in the industry.

Support Bitcoin Takeover

The Bitcoin Takeover project is sponsored by Vaultoro, the exchange which only allows you to trade with hard money. This is not financial advice, but on Vaultoro you can use bitcoin to hedge against inflation and switch to gold to avoid volatility. The trades are seamless and you can always switch to another asset to maximize the value of your investment. 

Furthermore, Vaultoro also publishes monthly glass books to prove that it holds 100% of the user’s assets and doesn’t engage in fractional reserve banking. CEO Joshua Scigala is also a very committed and principled bitcoiner who supports the Lightning network and really wants to see it blossom (which is why he also sponsors the giveaway from the BTCTKVR Radio broadcasts). 

If you would like to sign up to Vaultoro, you can use my referral link.

Also, if you found this article useful and you would like to reward me for my time and research, there are two ways you can do it and they can be complimentary:

1. Sign up to the Bitcoin Takeover newsletter, subscribe to the YouTube channel, follow BTCTKVR on Twitter and Instagram, and listen/subscribe to the Bitcoin Takeover Podcast on your favorite platform. You can also download the BTCTKVR magazine for free and print your own copies for personal use, meetups, and conferences.
2. Send a donation to one of the following addresses:

Bitcoin base layer: bc1q3s0mnepjgdl46ksqf3qjs65vm9j9aqa0hchua9

Liquid sidechain: VJL638FWbZFxU3Pr8HxN8zp4PxUqqUtXoJfDq8ho3X298MTcEt8sYLQHKFvv4NUf3AnieU7CMtiE64jG

Lightning Network: https://btctakeover.lnbits.com/lnurlp/2

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/bitcointakeover

If you make a donation and want to have your name featured in the Hall of Patrons, then please send me an e-mail.

But for a while, it remained unclear whether or not the transition from LND (Lightning Labs’ popular client) to c-lightning would be radical or the two clients would run in parallel. It took another four months for the software to get coded – but on October 12th 2021, Christian Rootzoll has revealed version 1.7.1 of the RaspiBlitz OS: a powerful and much-needed upgrade which adds Taproot support for the Bitcoin Core client while also allowing users to choose any Lightning configuration involving LND and c-lightning.

In other words, RaspiBlitz node operators can now choose between running only LND, running only c-lightning, or running both at the same time. The move towards supporting a new Lightning implementation was explained in a Blockstream blog post which highlighted the competitive advantages of c-lightning over LND:

• better privacy via multi-part payments which randomize the path selection during the transaction routing process;
• the ability to fund channels from both sides involved, to reduce the costs involved and encourage for larger channels to get opened (see this article about dual-funded channels);
• the option to lease inbound liquidity in your Lightning channel via Liquidity advertisements;
• BOLT12 invoices and QR codes, which enable reusability (as opposed to the popular single-use BOLT11s) and add lots of extra functionalities such as recurring payments, payment proofs, and even multisig setups (check this article for more details);
• better overall performance and stability on the otherwise low-powered Raspberry Pi 4 hardware, due to lower system requirements;

On the other hand, LND has some advantages of its own. Every other full node in a box project (from Umbrel to myNode) makes use of it, so it has a larger community of users and developers. Lightning Labs’ implementation is also more reliable for routing payments on the first try, and benefits from more third party applications and wallets. Therefore, some users might prefer to stick with LND instead of upgrading – hence the optionality between c-lightning and LND in the RaspiBlitz dashboard.

But those who are looking into experimenting with a snappier implementation of Lightning can run both or even set up a second node to discover c-lightning’s mightiness. To help users make up their minds about the differences between LND and c-lightning, RaspiBlitz developer Openoms has published a comparison table.

How to upgrade your node to RaspiBlitz 1.7.1

If you’re already running an older version of RaspiBlitz, then you should know about the project’s GitHub page and the extended step by step update instructions. For newer versions, all you have to do is access the “Update” options from the dashboard’s main menu and then follow the on-screen instructions in the “Release” sub-menu (you’re going to need another computer to download and flash the ROM file, as well as another SD card to complete the operation).

The RaspiBlitz architecture makes it possible to store all Bitcoin and Lightning-related information on the hard drive, so the removable SD card only enables the access to the operating system. This way, your channels and wallet files aren’t affected during the update process.

If you’re currently running MyNode, Umbrel or Nodl and want to upgrade to RaspiBlitz, then the process is similar. All you have to do is flash the SD card with the RaspiBlitz dashboard, and versions newer than 1.7 will automatically recognize your channels, wallet files, and settings. You even have a page which includes step by step instructions. So don’t worry, you won’t have to resync the entire blockchain or close your Lightning channels to make the transition.

And if you buy a new Raspberry Pi 4 computer and wish to run RaspiBlitz, then the process is fairly similar to the update – except that you will have to wait for the initial blockchain download and also set up your wallet files.

Last but not least, you also have the option to buy a RaspiBlitz device which comes packaged with the latest version of the dashboard. If you’re in Europe, you can purchase the device from the Fulmo shop. I bought one earlier this year and recorded an unboxing video that you can find with some explanatory links here.

If you’re in the United States, then Lightning in a Box will offer you the best deal with the smallest shipping costs.

Should you update to RaspiBlitz 1.7.1 if you don’t want to use c-lightning?

To put it plainly, yes. The update also comes with Bitcoin Core v22, LND v0.13.3, updates for all applications, as well as the possibility to connect over Tor with SphinxApp. These newer versions should bring extra speed and stability optimizations.

And if you choose to not run c-lightning, you can simply ignore everything related to it. If you don’t set it up from the dashboard, you won’t have to ever deal with it. For most uses, LND should be more than enough – especially if you care more about routing transactions and having access to more wallets and applications.

On the other hand, if you care about privacy and exciting new features, you should give c-lightning a try. Given its modular design and architecture, it will run better and consume fewer system resources on your Raspberry Pi 4 system. Clearly, c-lightning is better suited for developers and new technology enthusiasts.

In an upcoming release, RaspiBlitz will also add a friendly graphical user interface that you can access from your computer browser. This way, the software is going to become even more accessible to newbies who tend to gravitate towards Umbrel. To better understand why truly free open source software matters and what’s wrong with the “source accessible” approach of Umbrel, read this article.

And if you need a crash course on the Lightning Network, then check our my explanatory guide. I’ve written it so that the concepts become accessible even to a ten year-old.

Support Bitcoin Takeover

The Bitcoin Takeover project is sponsored by Vaultoro, the exchange which only allows you to trade with hard money. This is not financial advice, but on Vaultoro you can use bitcoin to hedge against inflation and switch to gold to avoid volatility. The trades are seamless and you can always switch to another asset to maximize the value of your investment. 

Furthermore, Vaultoro also publishes monthly glass books to prove that it holds 100% of the user’s assets and doesn’t engage in fractional reserve banking. CEO Joshua Scigala is also a very committed and principled bitcoiner who supports the Lightning network and really wants to see it blossom (which is why he also sponsors the giveaway from the BTCTKVR Radio broadcasts). 

If you would like to sign up to Vaultoro, you can use my referral link.

Also, if you found this article useful and you would like to reward me for my time and research, there are two ways you can do it and they can be complimentary:

1. Sign up to the Bitcoin Takeover newsletter, subscribe to the YouTube channel, follow BTCTKVR on Twitter and Instagram, and listen/subscribe to the Bitcoin Takeover Podcast on your favorite platform. You can also download the BTCTKVR magazine for free and print your own copies for personal use, meetups, and conferences.
2. Send a donation to one of the following addresses:

Bitcoin base layer: bc1qg5ltwvt8cng9c27cu5ryaqjve276j5wpf0u2yw

Liquid sidechain: VJL638FWbZFxU3Pr8HxN8zp4PxUqqUtXoJfDq8ho3X298MTQEstmgE5xSZxJLuJAXaQskZP8bPKDDjBD

Lightning Network: https://btctakeover.lnbits.com/lnurlp/2

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/bitcointakeover

If you make a donation and want to have your name featured in the Hall of Patrons, then please send me an e-mail.

Thank you for reading!

You can tell by the diversity of the topics being presented that Bitcoin has become such a complex topic that it’s hard to keep focus on the whole spectrum of ideas. For instance, my interview with Max Hillebrand goes back to the Austrian school of economics to apply praxeology to the understanding of the events that take place in El Salvador.

In the second episode featured in this livestream, Karo Zagorus (also known as BTC Dragon Lord) interviews Riccardo Spagni (former maintainer of the Monero project and early bitcoiner who still supports the network in various capacities). The conversation will help you learn more about privacy.

The third episode on BTCTKVR Radio #9 is the most recent Talking in Bits show. Jose and Ben talk about a very important topic which deals with the psychology and weaknesses of fiat money: in a nutshell, it incentivizes bullshit. Lots of otherwise low-quality goods and services get created due to the large and inflatable money supply, so it’s important to understand that under a Bitcoin standard we would have better incentives for sustainable high-quality stuff.

Then on the Join the Wasabikas podcast, Max Hillebrand interviews podcaster Aviv Milner. The conversation revolves around the cypherpunk ethos and the otherwise undesirable trust in third parties (who, as Nick Szabo taught us, are security holes). This is an interesting dialogue that you should definitely check out in order to better understand the ideas that precede Bitcoin and are further projected by Satoshi Nakamoto’s computer network.

At the end of this highly educational streak, you get to relax by listening to a playlist of curated Bitcoin-related songs. You can also check out the songs and download them here.

After the musical intermission, you can hear Coinicarus’ interview with Mandrik – one of the coolest early bitcoiners, who first got involved in the project after selling baklava. Ever since, he has worked for a couple of Bitcoin exchanges and instead of pursuing an executive position he decided to stick to his principles and stay independent. Listen to this “Fun with Bitcoin” episode to find out more.

Next up, Car Golzalez expresses his bullishness for El Salvador’s Bitcoin adoption on Thriller Bitcoin. While I don’t necessarily agree with his optimism, I agree that it’s a major turning point in our history and an event that will shape the future of bitcoin as an official currency around the world.

On David Bennet’s “Bitcoin and. . . ” show, we learn more about what’s going on in China. The collapse of real-estate giant Evergrande and all the news about China banning Bitcoin (for the 8475th time) have definitely made us wonder what their government might be up to. And this is where you can learn a little more about this peculiar situation with some help from David Bennet.

The next episode featured in this stream is Bitcoin Audible #551, in which Guy Swann reads the late Dan Kaminsky’s classic 2013 article “I Tried Hacking Bitcoin and I Failed”. It’s all about Kaminsky’s 2011 efforts to break Satoshi’s code. At the time, he wrote “my fifteen point list of obvious likely bugs was systematically destroyed by a codebase that quite frankly knew better”. To find out more about this failed hacking attempt, stay tuned.

Next up, Phil Gibson interviews Kal Kassa about Bitcoin in Ethiopia. It’s a major and interesting topic specifically because the dialogue steps outside of the safe boundaries of American and European topics. We find out about Bitcoin in a country that needs it and we get to understand the reasons for which we are working.

After this educational moment, we once again get to relax with a musical intermission. The songs are the same, but the musicality makes up for the repetition.

Then we get back to business with Bitrefill’s “To the Moon” podcast. This episode is special because the interviewee is Adam Gibson, the creator of JoinMarket (a decentralized open-source platform for CoinJoins, that anyone can use to coordinate mixes which increase fungibility). It’s a useful conversation that will teach you more about Bitcoin privacy.

And last but not least, we get Shoes in Bitcoin episode 21, in which Valeryia interviews Olga Ukolova about Bitcoin’s layer 3. Basically, all of that tokenization and NFT trading is about to move to RGB Spectrum which is built on top of the Lightning Network. This means that slow and inefficient blockchains get replaced by client-side validation and everything is going to benefit from a more elegant design. To get a better view on what the future of Bitcoin looks like, you definitely want to listen to Olga Ukolova.

▶ Play video Watch on YouTube

Here is the playlist for BTCTKVR Episode #9:

1. Bitcoin Takeover S9 E9 with Max Hillebrand (Praxeology & Human Action), (link)

2. Bitcoin Rehab with Riccardo Spagni (Fluffy Pony) (link)

3. Talking in Bits, Ep. 36 (Fiat Incentivizes Bullshit) (link)

4. Join the Wasabikas, Ep. 24 (Aviv Milner) (link)

5. Music intermission (mixed by Guywithafork)

6. Fun with Bitcoin, with Mandrik (link)

7. Thriller Bitcoin, El Salvador’s Bitcoin Revolution (link)

8. Bitcoin And. . ., Ep. 483 on China (link)

9. Bitcoin Audible, Read 551 (Dan Kaminsky’s “I Tried Hacking Bitcoin and I Failed”) (link)

10. A Boy Named Pseu, Bitcoin in Ethiopia with Kal Kassa (link) 

11. Musical Intermission

12. Bitrefill’s To the Moon Podcast, featuring Adam Gibson of JoinMarket (link)

13. Shoes in Bitcoin, Episode 21, featuring Olga Ukolova (link)

It should be noted from the get-go that the amount of interviews featuring Blockstream employees is a mere coincidence and there is no agenda behind having 3 of the 12 podcast episodes feature employees from the sidechain company.

Furthermore, this time around there is no episode in Spanish. Not because the streams which included them weren’t successful, but because Javier Bastardo decided to have Adam Back on his show and conduct the interview in English. Next time we might just continue with the multilingual approach.

▶ Play video Watch on YouTube

Once again, this stream is sponsored by Vaultoro – the gold and bitcoin exchange which helps you protect yourself from inflation and volatility so you don’t touch infinitely inflationary fiat money. Not only that they publish monthly proof of reserves to demonstrate that they can’t get Gox’d, but they also support the Lightning Network to the extent that a faucet will be running all throughout the radio stream. Pay attention to the audio cue, go to bitcoint-takeover.com/vaultoro, scan the QR code on the screen and you may just win 10 bits/1000 sats (you’re going to need a mobile wallet such as Blue Wallet on iOS or Breez on Android).

You can listen to the stream on YouTube, Twitch (recommended) and Twitter.

Without further ado, here is what you can listen to in playlist no.8:

1. Bitcoin Takeover S9 E8 with Nayuta (Kenichi Kurimoto & Hitomi Moriyama) (link)
2. Bitcoin Rehab, at PlebSec 2020 with Hodlonaut, Katoshi, BTChap, Coinicarus, and NICO (link)
3. Talking in Bits, Ep. 33: Refresher on the Bitcoin Basics (link)
4. Join the Wasabikas, Ep. 26: Sovereign Jets with Roger Proctor (link)
5. Musical Intermission (Guywithafork mix, link)
6. Fun with Bitcoin, interview with Mutatrum (link)
7. Thriller Lightning, S1 E02 with Lisa Neigut of Blockstream (link)
8. Bitcoin And . . . , Ep. 471 Smash Buy BTC (link)
9. Bitcoin Audible, Read 555 “The Bitcoin Energy Debate & The Gold Resource Cost Debate” (link)
10. A Boy Named Pseu, interview with Gary Leland (link)
11. Musical Intermission
12. Bitrefill’s To the Moon Podcast, Interview with David Quittem (link)
13. Shoes in Bitcoin, Ep. 18 with Samson Mow (link)
14. Satoshi en Venezuela, with Adam Back (link)

For the duration of approximately 20 hours, you can listen to Knut Svanholm talk about sovereignty and El Salvador on the Bitcoin Takeover Podcast, Karo Zagorus interviewing the Wasabi wallet crew on Bitcoin Rehab, Jose Burgos and Ben Mercedes bringing you the news on the 30th episode of Talking in Bits, Max Hillebrand finding out more about overcoming fiat censorship from Bittr’s Ruben Waterman on the Join the Wasabikas Podcast, Coinicarus interviewing Viking HODL on the Fun with Bitcoin Podcast, Car Gonzalez offering insights on the Bitcoin situation in Austin, Texas on the third episode of Thriller Bitcoin, David Bennett discussing with THNDR Games creator Jack Everitt on the Bitcoin and . . . show, Guy Swann reading Lyn Alden’s article on Bitcoin’s energy use for the Bitcoin Audible podcast, Phil Gibson interviewing Aleks Svetski on the A Boy Named Pseu podcast, the Bitrefill guys inquiring about bitcoin adoption in Romania from their guest Felix Crișan, Valeryia Georgieva interviewing Andrew Howard for the Shoes in Bitcoin show, and Javier Bastardo talking with Jesus Leonett about traditional finance and Bitcoin.

As is tradition, you will also find musical intermissions that will help you relax in between learning sessions. The playlist is mixed by Guywithafork and features some of the most talented and prolific musicians in the Bitcoin space. Though some songs are parodies or adaptations, most of them are entirely original.

And speaking of traditions, in between episodes you can still grab some bitcoins via Lightning network. The faucet is sponsored by Vaultoro, as the company’s CEO and co-founder Joshua Scigala is a big fan of LN and really hopes that it will get more traction. To earn your reward for learning, you must follow the instructions in the audio and be the first person to access the link. If you don’t make it at first, you get another chance after the next podcast episode.

You can listen to BTCTKVR Radio on YouTube and Twitch (most recommended).

Here’s the full BTCTKVR Radio #7 playlist, with links to the original shows:

1. Bitcoin Takeover S9 E7 with Knut Svanholm (link)
2. Bitcoin Rehab, featuring Wasabi Wallet (link)
3. Talking in Bits, Ep. 30 (link)
4. Join the Wasabikas Ep. 25, Overcoming Fiat Censorship with Ruben Waterman (link)
5. Musical intermission
6. Fun with Bitcoin, with Viking HODL (link)
7. Thriller Bitcoin, Ep. 3: How Austin Became the Bitcoin Mecca Capital of Texas (link)
8. Bitcoin And…, Ep. 328 with Jack Everitt (link)
9. Bitcoin Audible, Bitcoin’s Energy Use Isn’t a Problem, Here’s Why, a read from Lyn Alden (link)
10. A Boy Named Pseu, Bitcoin Is Fire! with Aleks Svetski (link)
11. Musical Intermission
12. Bitrefill’s To The Moon Podcast, Ep. 19 featuring Felix Crișan (link)
13. Shoes in Bitcoin, Ep. 24 with Andrew Howard (link)
14. Satoshi en Venezuela, with Jesus Leonett (link)

Since the launch of this episode got delayed, I decided to make up for it by upgrading the next radio stream. The playlist offers more than 24 hours of unique content and is programmed to keep on looping. Therefore, any time you tune in you’re gonna discover something new and find out new information about Bitcoin from a different perspective.

As always, you can listen to the playlist on Twitch (most recommended), YouTube, and my Twitter feed.

▶ Play video Watch on YouTube

Without further ado, here is the full playlist:

1. Bitcoin Takeover S9 E4 with Paul Sztorc
2. Bitcoin Takeover S9 E5 with Matt Hill
3. Join the Wasabikas Ep. 21: Alex Gladstein on Fighting Communist Police States
4. Join the Wasabikas Ep. 22: Jeremy Rubin on Writing Bitcoin Code & Decentralization (Sapio smart contracts)
5. 🇪🇸 Satoshi en Venezuela: P2P Exchanges and LocalCryptos Review
6. 🇪🇸 Satoshi en Venezuela: Is Paraguay the First Domino Piece of a Bigger Game or Just Hype?
7. Talking in Bits, Ep. 26 (China Miner Migration + BlockFi issues)
8. Talking in Bits, Ep. 27 (This week’s latest news)
9. Thriller Premium, S4 E29, Ultra Shit Money
10. Thriller Bitcoin, S5 E1 (ETFs and other regulations)
11. Shoes in Bitcoin, Ep. 20 with Alekos Filini
12. Shoes in Bitcoin, Ep. 21 with Olga Ukolova
13. Music Intermission (Guywithafork mix)
14. Fun with Bitcoin, Ep. 136 with BAM
15. Fun with Bitcoin, Ep. 134 with Lixin Liu (KeyStone)
16. Bitcoin and…, Ep. 457, Another Hack (Thorchain)
17. Bitcoin and…, Ep. 458, BlockedFi
18. Guy Swann, Bitcoin Audible Read 543, There Never Was a Real Tulip Fever
19. Guy Swann, Bitcoin Audible Read 544, Another Way To Think About Bitcoin’s Value
20. Phil Gibson, A Boy Named Pseu, with Stephen Cole
21. Phil Gibson, A Boy Named Pseu, with Chris Reed
22. Bitrefill, To The Moon Podcast, Ep. 16 with Jameson Lopp
23. Bitrefill, To The Moon Podcast, Ep. 17 with Giacomo Zucco
24. Music Intermission
25. Loop back to 1

*The episodes marked with 🇪🇸 are in Spanish and provide the opportunity to learn a new language or practice. It’s also a way of branching out from the usual English-centric approach to understanding Bitcoin. 

At the end of every episode, if you’re the first to open the page mentioned in the Vaultoro ad, you can claim 10 bits (1000 sats) from Vaultoro! Just like the previous times, you also get the chance to earn some bitcoins and learn about Lightning Network while broadening your views with the podcast content.

Bitcoin Takeover is sponsored by Vaultoro and Wasabi Wallet

Why trade against fiat when you can use gold, silver, and bitcoin all in one place? Vaultoro offers you the chance to transact with honest money and maximize your purchasing power with assets that don’t inflate whenever central bankers fire up their printers. Also, Vaultoro’s gold and silver reserves are fully-audited and stored in top vaulting facilities from Switzerland.

Whenever you think that the BTC price reaches the absolute top, you can diversify into gold. This means that you invest in another form of hard money which governments and central banks can’t devalue via inflation. Thanks to its longer history and bigger market capital, gold is also less volatile – so you still hedge against inflation, preserve your purchasing power, and are able to buy the bitcoin dip (or bottom, if you can time it).

If you ever want to pick up your gold or have it delivered to you so you can handle custody yourself, that’s an option that Vaultoro enables. To find out more, click this link – it’s a referral link and I’m not making any money from your signup, but the performance of the address gets measured to see the efficiency/benefits of the sponsorship deal. 

Note that this is not financial advice and you should do your own research before doing any kind of trade. Embrace financial sovereignty with responsibility.

Wasabi wallet has been among my favorite desktop wallets since early 2019. I was amazed when I discovered how seamlessly it could integrate elements from Electrum and Bitcoin Core, and it’s been a thrill to see the product grow and become more refined. Like Trezor Suite, Wasabi routes your connection via Tor to boost your privacy. Also, the wallet automatically connects to your local full node or else downloads block filters to specifically avoid the trust involved in SPV setups.

You can also use your hardware wallets with Wasabi. But the truly unique feature is the ability to make your bitcoins more fungible via Chaumian CoinJoins. It’s a neat little trick which makes all coins involved in the mixing rounds equally tainted, therefore reducing the relevance and accuracy of blockchain analysis and boosting the plausible deniability of resulting transactions. If you don’t want the electronics vendor to see how much you got paid in bitcoin, then CoinJoins are your best friend.

Wasabi also offers easy UTXO management (also referred to as “Coin Control”), prevents you from reusing addresses, and enables a privacy-friendly Lurking Wife Mode which hides all of your BTC amounts and key transaction data. Download Wasabi wallet for free by clicking this link: it’s available on Windows, MacOS and Linux.

Read the Wasabi wallet terms of service to be sure that you understand the limits of the software and to which extent the company is liable for the ways in which you use the product.

This new playlist includes the largest amount of podcast episodes to date: 13 recordings from 11 content producers, with a length which exceeds 17 hours. If you add Guywithafork’s hour-long mix of the finest songs in the Bitcoin space (which gets played 3 times during the stream), you get 20 hours of pure knowledge and opportunities to learn and discover something new.

In order of appearance, the podcasts from this radio stream are:

1. Bitcoin Takeover S9 E3, featuring Joshua Scigala – 2:20:04
2. Join the Wasabikas with Max Hillebrand, featuring Ben Arc – 1:42:58
3. Hablemos de Bitcoin, featuring Javier Bastardo, G. Goncalvez and M. Rosales – 1:04:44
4. Talking in Bits with Jose Burgos and Ben Mercedes II, Episode 25 – 48:06
5. Thriller Insider with Car Gonzalez, S4 E20 – 1:05:04
6. Bitcoin Rehab with Karo Zagorus, featuring Nikcantmine – 57:48
7. Shoes in Bitcoin with Valeryia Georgieva, featuring Leonardo Comandini – 1:09:02
8. Bitcoin Takeover S9 E2, featuring Vlad Zamfir – 1:43:08
9. Fun with Bitcoin with Coinicarus, featuring Spinte HODL – 57:49
10. Bitcoin Audible with Guyswann, reading from Nopara73‘s article “Privacy, Fungibility, Anonymity” – 43:49
11. Bitcoin and… with David Bennet, Episode 447 – 49:12
12. A Boy Named Pseu with Phil Gibson, featuring Matt Hill – 2:55:10
13. Bitrefill’s To The Moon Podcast, featuring Paul Puey – 56:56

After the end of the 13th podcast episode, the stream is programmed to loop and start from the beginning. This means that you get more chances to tune in and listen to the educational content that you might have missed.

As you can see, the episodes are curated to feature political ideas (anarcho capitalism and bitcoin adoption in places where the US dollar is inaccessible), news coverage and event reporting, Bitcoin development, privacy and sovereignty, as well as unpopular opinions that will help you strengthen your conviction or else expand your thought. There’s something for everyone and you can tune in at any time to learn something new.

During the music section, you can hear the following songs:

1. Czino – Bitdrops
2. Payday (Richard Remix)
3. Richard – Pump It Up
4. DJ J Scrilla – Faith in my Money (Money Printer Go BRRR)
5. Phil Gibson – End the Fed
6. Crypto Contagion – Bitcoin Song
7. Renegade Investor – Bankster’s Paradise
8. Vlad Costea – Always Learning (About Bitcoin)
9. Zhou Tonged – B.R.E.A.M.
10. Lord Snooty of Bitcoin – BTCTKNVR Podcast
11. CryptoRaptor – The Crypto Rap
12. Pleb Music – New Technology (Max Keiser vs Peter Schiff)
13. Pleb Music – Jack Mallers Stacking Sats
14. Vlad Costea – Bulls vs Bears
15. Vlad Costea – To The Moon
16. Wasabi Wallet Song
17. Guywithafork – A Bullish Man

Click here to find all the links to the songs and the artists’ YouTube, SoundCloud, and Twitter pages.

The Bitcoin Takeover Radio stream is available on YouTube and Twitter – but I recommend you to use Twitch