Vlad Costea

The Best Quotes from Every Episode of Bitcoin Takeover Podcast! (2019-2026)

The best Bitcoin Takeover quotes from every episode, seasons 1 to 17: Vitalik Buterin, Roger Ver, Phil Zimmermann, Slush and 300+…

S17 E45: Talking Tari & Privacy with Naveen Jain, Mr. Fox & Marguerite de Courcelle

There are projects in this space that are famous for what they shipped. Tari used to be famous for what it has…

S17 E44: Marc De Mesel on the Bitcoin Cash Bet, the Privacy Coin Basket & the Price of Conviction

There is a particular kind of person the Bitcoin Cash community produced in its glory years, and Marc De Mesel is the…

S1 E4 Remastered: Omar Faridi on Bitcoin in Pakistan, Brain Drain & the Case for Moderate Thinking

In January 2019, I was still an editor at Crypto Insider. Working a fixed salary and editing other people’s articles while…

S17 E42: Bob Summerwill on Ethereum Classic & Bitcoin’s Fork Season

I first met Bob Summerwill in person at the Proof of Work Summit in September 2023: the event where Bitcoiners, Litecoiners…

S1 E3 Remastered: Zack Voell on Bitcoin & Politics

(This remaster is sponsored by Helen’s Pizza, 183 Newark Avenue, Jersey City, where you can buy pizza, pasta, and coffee with…

S17 E41: Vik Sharma on Radar, Arbiter & Vibe Coding the Future of Cake Wallet

Seven months ago, Vik Sharma joined Bitcoin Takeover Podcast and effectively declared the privacy wars over, telling the Monero…

S17 E40: Amir Taaki & Prof. Richard Werner on Decentralization, Community Banks & the Coming CBDC Panopticon

(Recorded live at Mallorca Blockchain Days in front of an audience, this episode is a crossover between the conference’s final…

S1 E2 Remastered: John Carvalho on Bitcoin Politics, the Foundation’s Failures & That Roger Ver Interview

(Recorded January 2019, remastered 2025. Sponsored by Helen’s Pizza in Jersey City, 183 Newark Avenue, where you can pay with…

Remembering Donald McIntyre: S1 E1 Remaster, on Bitcoin, Tim May, Nick Szabo and the History of Money

Donald McIntyre passed away in 2025, and the space lost one of its most unlikely polymaths. Born in Costa Rica, raised in…

S17 E39: Kurt Wuckert Jr on the Big Block Wars, BSV, Craig Wright & the Road Not Taken

Every community has its designated villains, and in Bitcoin’s longest running morality play, Kurt Wuckert Jr has worn the black…

S17 E38: Keagan McClelland on Lightning Metrics, Covenants, Consensus Politics & Verifying Bitcoin

There is a certain genre of Bitcoin Twitter argument that never quite resolves into a conversation. People trade metrics, memes…

S17 E37: Paul Sztorc on the eCash Three Stage Launch, Free Coins & 12 Drivechains

Paul Sztorc now holds the record for the most appearances on this show: eleven. Nobody else has come close, and nobody else…

S17 E36: Yonatan Sompolinsky on Kaspa Covenants, DAGKnight & Coordination Markets

Yonatan Sompolinsky came to Europe for a reason he would only describe on record as a secretive meeting of DAGKnight magicians…

S17 E28: Josh Swihart on Zcash’s Comeback, the Orchard Bug & Forking the Company

Twenty months ago, Josh Swihart came on this show to talk about Zcash at its darkest hour: Binance was threatening delisting over…

S17 E27: Kieran Mesquka on Railgun & Building Privacy Where the Users Are

Sometimes you have to wait a year for an interview to happen. I first met Kieran Mesquka at DevConnect in Argentina, back…

S17 E26: Calin Culianu, Steve Thurmond & The Phenomenal Big Blockers on Nine Years of Bitcoin Cash

Almost nine years after the big split of the Bitcoin community, it was time. Time to sit down with the people who…

S17 E25: Milan De Reede on Nano GPT, AI & Vibe Coding

There is something poetic about recording an episode at the Bitcoin Conference in Las Vegas, the edition where the mining stage…

S17 E24: Zach Herbert on Passport Prime, KeyOS & the End of Air-Gapped

Some interviews you plan for weeks. This one I planned around a box. Two weeks after Zach Herbert handed me a Passport…

S17 E23: Hunter Beast & Mark Karpeles on Quantum-Proofing Bitcoin, Satoshi’s Coins & the Ghost of Mt. Gox

This interview took place on April 29th 2026, at the LayerTwo Labs booth at the Bitcoin Conference in Las Vegas with Hunter…

S17 E22: Jeremy Rubin on CTV, Char & Relentless Building in an Adversarial Environment

Four years. That is how long I have been chasing Jeremy Rubin for an interview, and it took the Bitcoin 2026 conference…

S17 E20: Amir Taaki, Harry Halpin & Christopher Cialone on Palantir’s Technofascism, the Roman Storm Trial & the Privacy Arms Race

Some episodes are planned for months. This one happened because Zach Herbert postponed, I panicked, and the universe compensated…

S17 E19: Amaury Séchet on Forking Bitcoin Twice, Quantum FUD & Scars from the Block Size Wars

Two years after our first interview, I decided to invite Amaury Séchet(@deadalnix) to find out what the Greg Maxwell of big…

S17 E18: Dr. K on Scaling Proof of Work, Soaping the Competition with Quai & Unifying Physics

Dr. K (Karl Kreder), architect of the Quai Network, came back for his second appearance on Bitcoin Takeover to defend his…

S17 E17: Lukas Hozda on Building Bitcoin in Rust & Why Mempool Filters Can’t Work

Recorded in a soundproofed room at Braiins headquarters in Prague that once doubled as an ASIC oven (more on that later), this…

S17 E16: Summer Meng on Bitmars, Selling Bitcoin ASICs & Heating Your Home with Miners

There is a reason people call Summer Meng the ASIC Queen. If you want the latest Bitmain hardware anywhere in Europe or…

S17 E15: Danny Plainview & Chad Master on OP_NET, Smart Contracts on Bitcoin L1 & the Great Stablecoin Unlock

Editor’s note: this conversation was recorded in late March 2026, in the days surrounding OP_NET’s mainnet activation. The…

S17 E14: Kristian Csepcsar on the History of Bitcoin Mining, Braiins Hashpower & the Centralization Nobody Talks About

Editor’s note: this conversation was recorded in person at the undisclosed Braiins office in Prague, most likely in March 2026…

S17 E13: Charlie Spears on Blockspace Media, the Purity Spiral & the Case for Classical Maximalism

Editor’s note: this conversation was streamed live in mid-March 2026, a week after the US switched to daylight saving time (which…

S17 E12: Ray Youssef on the Mexico Arrest & Life After NoOnes

Ray Youssef does not do quiet exits. In his telling, he walked out of Monerotopia in Mexico after giving a Malcolm X…

S17 E11: John Carvalho on Bitcoin Depression, Lightning Derangement & the Atomic Economy

John Carvalho was the second guest in the history of this podcast, way back in season one, episode two, when he was…

S17 E10: Mark Karpelès on Mt. Gox, the 1Feex Fortune & His Plan to Hard Fork Bitcoin

Mark Karpelès is the one name in Bitcoin that needs no introduction and always gets one anyway. The former CEO of Mt.…

S17 E6: Vik Sharma on Ending Wars Between Privacy Coins

Lately, Cake Wallet has become the Swiss Army knife of financial privacy. And CEO Vik Sharma doesn’t seem to slow down: in…

S15 E3: Hernán Marino on Bitcoin in Argentina & Becoming a Core Dev

Hernán Marino is a software engineer, academic, and Bitcoin enthusiast from Argentina. In this episode, he delves into the impact…

Vlad Costea on Bitcoin Maximalism (PoW Summit, Prague, September 2023)

Bitcoin maximalism is one of the most interesting ideologies of our time. It emerged sometime in the first half of the 2010s,…