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Phil Zimmermann is the creator of PGP and the man who fought the US government in court to normalize open source cryptography. Without his courageous actions, Satoshi Nakamoto wouldn't have had access to all the cryptography libraries that he used (such as ECDSA) and couldn't have hidden his identity (he used PGP and Tor for his communications). I had the honor to interview Phil Zimmermann in Prague during the Proof of Work Summit and I'm happy and proud to share the recording with you. I've asked him about Bitcoin, I've asked him about Hal Finney (who was his first employee at PGP), and we've also talked about other cryptography projects that he finds interesting. He's the kind of cypherpunk who cares about privacy much more than creating sound money, and his work definitely reflects this path. The interview is available on YouTube, Apple Podcasts & Spotify (as well as many other podcast apps). If you want to search for it yourselves, look for Bitcoin Takeover Podcast S14 E15 with Phil Zimmermann. Here you can find all the links, as well as time stamps and a full transcript: https://bitcoin-takeover.com/s14-e15-phil-zimmermann-on-bitcoin-cryptography-pgp/If you like this interview, please subscribe and leave your feedback as a comment!  |
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Trezor, the company that created the world's first hardware wallet, has a new CEO and also plans to launch a new line-up of products. In this interview, Matej Zak talks about the Trezor Model R (codename Trezor R): a hardware wallet that will cost just as much as the Model One (~$70), offer 3 physical buttons, a USB-C connector, and native Shamir Secret Sharing support (SLIP39, which used to be exclusive for the more expensive Model T). Furthermore, it seems like Trezor is planning to support the Model One with firmware updates beyond the 10-year anniversary of the device. So even though new products will launch, the original will still get regular security patches. Something that's truly unique in the world of consumer electronics, where even giants like Apple and Google drop support after 5 years. Last but not least, Matej Zak talks about the Tropic Square open source secure element chip (which won't enter production sooner than the second half of 2024 and therefore can't become a part of a new hardware wallet until early 2025) and explains the rationale behind adding a Wasabi wallet integration for CoinJoins. Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts & YouTube. I've also written an article about the interview and it includes all the links: https://bitcoin-takeover.com/s14-e3-matej-zak-on-trezors-new-hardware/ |
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BTCTKVR 3: Breaking FUD, the open source magazine which aims to debunk the most common misconceptions about Bitcoin in a way that should generate more grassroots adoption and proper understanding, is now also available in German! Thanks to the remarkable translation effort of Ray Rizzling, the 100 million+ German speakers around the world can now understand why Bitcoin is useful, it doesn't boil the oceans, and it's here to stay. Why is the Breaking FUD magazine a big deal? Because it takes the exact opposite approach: instead of telling people what is Bitcoin, it start from the assumption that the media already told them. Instead of pursuing a potentially divisive ideological approach, it presents some facts about government regulation, altcoins, scaling, security, price volatility, use cases, energy consumption, mining centralization, education, and mainstream acceptance. And instead of trying to target a specific demographic which is more likely to read the work and support the mission of the Bitcoin project, the Breaking FUD magazine takes the riskier path of using facts in an attempt to appeal to everyone. Explaining to people what Bitcoin is not is of utmost importance – especially in an environment which tends to antagonize and nihilistically question the significance and utility of such an invention. Bitcoin has been around for 14 years, billions of people are already aware of its existence, but what they know is only what their media and politicians misinformed them. Using these subjects of “FUD” as a starting point for the conversation is important, as it invites people to use the information that they know and have it challenged by facts of which they were not aware. Read more: https://bitcoin-takeover.com/breaking-fud-is-now-available-in-german/Download the English edition: https://bitcoin-takeover.com/btctkvr-3-breaking-fud/Download the German translation: https://bitcoin-takeover.com/deutsch-btctkvr-3-breaking-fud/ |
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Hi, guys! I've been aware of Portal for about 2 years now: they're building a way to do cross-chain atomic swaps on layer 2s to increase liquidity on the Lightning network and also build a trustless way to do decentralized exchanges. But more recently, they've slightly shifted focus to also include ordinal inscriptions on Bitcoin's base layer. Basically, you can buy ordinals using the Lightning network (which automatically includes holders of USDT, WBTC or ETH on other chains). In the near future, I can see this as being a user-friendly way to build digital collectible markets on Bitcoin. Something like OpenSea, but much more elegant in its design and denominated in BTC. I thought it was an interesting concept, so I wrote an article about it. Hope some of you will find it useful 🫡 https://bitcoin-takeover.com/portal-presents-ordinal-atomic-swap-tech-demo/ |
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Hi guys! I wrote an article about the virtues of running your own Bitcoin full node. Hope you're going to like it, I look forward to your feedback! PS: for some reason, it seems like the images (which took me a couple of hours to generate and edit) are not loading. I'll look into possible fixes. Otherwise, the text is in good shape and I stand by every word 🫡 https://bitcoin-takeover.com/10-reasons-you-should-run-your-own-bitcoin-full-node/The images are awesome! Which engine you have used to generate them? Your points are well made. However, I don't think a lot of people will be interested in running a full scale node operation unless there is some financial reward. I understand that it doesn't require a super high-configuration system to run the node, but there is a cost associated. Unless the nod operators are able to recover that cost, it makes little sense to run a node. People are not willing to do charity. So this was something to look at while creating the bitcoin. Thank you! I've used Midjourney to generate the images, with prompts which contain the words "computers in a cyberpunk world". Then I did a little color correction and added the Bitcoin logos all over. I hope that more people will care about privacy and verification. Leaking your xpub to somebody else's node is not ideal. Neither is trusting in a third party server that displays your balance. |
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Hi guys! I wrote an article about the virtues of running your own Bitcoin full node. Hope you're going to like it, I look forward to your feedback! PS: for some reason, it seems like the images (which took me a couple of hours to generate and edit) are not loading. I'll look into possible fixes. Otherwise, the text is in good shape and I stand by every word 🫡 https://bitcoin-takeover.com/10-reasons-you-should-run-your-own-bitcoin-full-node/ |
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Hi guys! Just wanted to share with you my latest podcast interview, which is about a new uncensorable P2P marketplace protocol which is called Civ Kit. It's currently being built by CommerceBlock CEO Nicholas Gregory (best known for MercuryWallet and his work on Statechains) and Ray Youssef (formerly of Paxful, a popular P2P exchange). Hope you're going to like this one, the concept is certainly fascinating. It's being built on top of Nostr to take advantage of the relaying system, it uses the Lightning network for payments, and it's meant to enable the unbanked to do commerce with the rest of the world without any barriers  https://bitcoin-takeover.com/nicholas-gregory-ray-youssef-civ-kit-p2p-bitcoin-marketplace/ |
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Hi, guys! If you're interested in buying some new & discounted ASIC miners, plug-in full nodes, hardware wallets, metal plate backups, or pieces of art, I compiled a list of the best deals you can find. Hope you'll find it useful! Though Black Friday is over, most of these deals are extended to also cover Cyber Monday: https://bitcoin-takeover.com/the-best-black-friday-2022-deals-in-bitcoin/ |
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Since September 2018, Lisa Neigut has been working for Blockstream to improve the company's Lightning network client (Core Lightning, formerly known as c-lightning). After witnessing the bugs which caused LND nodes to crash and receive emergency patches, I've decided to interview her to ask two important questions: 1. Why did this happen to Lightning Labs' client? 2. Why didn't this happen to Blockstream's client? Also, I've framed my questions in a way which follow a logical structure that should help people learn more about running a Core Lightning node. You also get to hear some backup and privacy tips that are essential for protecting yourself and your funds. What do you guys think about Lightning's current state of development?––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– If you'd like to listen to the interview, you'll find all the links in this article. Time stamps are included, so you can skip to the part you find most interesting: https://bitcoin-takeover.com/s12-e8-lisa-neigut-on-running-a-core-lightning-node-from-home/YouTube link: https://youtu.be/c7oym5imzJcAudio-only link: https://bitcoin-takeover.com/audio/?name=2022-11-10_s12_e8_lisa_neigut_on_running_a_core_lightning_node.mp3 |
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I'm happy that there's this sort of intellectual content about Bitcoin and the context of different political and economic approaches. I was hoping an article would have some highlights from the video interview, though, for those who, like me, prefer to read than to listen. Also, it's very helpful for big videos to have timestamps on the main matters discussed, so that if a person doesn't feel like spending 2 hours 40 minutes on the whole thing, they can still get a general idea of what the interview was about and watch the fragments which are of most interest to them. I'd, for example, listen to arguments on why he views Bitcoin community as a cult, but I'm not interested enough to spend hours on it.
Added timestamps to the YouTube video. If you're interested in listening to the conversation about Bitcoin being a cult, skip to the parts between 01:13:10 – 01:45:00 plus 02:07:00 – 02:24:30 Hope the conversation in this thread will be more topical and will make fewer assumptions in regards to my takes on the issue. To save you from scrolling to the first post, I'll repost the link: https://youtu.be/7W7EJkQa7s8 |
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Nobody should be engaging media without proof that the media in question is honest. =>
Talking points such as these are why smart people don't engage you.
You can argue that I'm debating in bad faith and be as subtle as you want in terms of implying that I'm too dumb to deserve replies to the inquiry. But let me ask you this: did you watch/attend any of the Miami conferences? Or the one that's currently taking place in Amsterdam? I won't make any assumptions, but I'll leave a few samples here. Before you consider using "these guys are in a minority" argument, I'll remind you that these conferences have more attendees than BitcoinTalk forum accounts and the amount of followers that the talking heads have should also be taken into consideration. Max Keiser's "fuck Elon" moment: https://youtu.be/GC_h_tz44uwMichael Saylor telling sovereign individuals what they should do with their own money: https://youtu.be/8ZcFahsvFyISaifedean explaining to Jordan Peterson that Bitcoin is "digital energy" (this became a popular meme): https://youtu.be/iJ85fyWx-CkI could probably dig up more stuff about Bitcoin being a "battery", "digital real estate", "element zero", "digital alchemy", and all sorts of silly metaphors. But the concerning part is that people take them seriously. Smart enough to toss a Charged statement to elicit an emotional reaction in order to garner content which is then Cherry picked for more Charged statements in order to promote said podcast. Dishonest persuasion until proven otherwise. That's the sorry state of the media today. Sorry not sorry. Yes I am deliberately ignoring your rope attempts as well. Note my underlines. I can do it to. Sir, we can appeal to our subjective realities all day long and question each other's honesty or good faith. But how about you watch this week's Amsterdam conference (there's a free livestream) or book a flight to Miami next year? We can talk about the cult-like status of the community after you experience these large conferences first-hand. |
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I'm happy that there's this sort of intellectual content about Bitcoin and the context of different political and economic approaches. I was hoping an article would have some highlights from the video interview, though, for those who, like me, prefer to read than to listen. Also, it's very helpful for big videos to have timestamps on the main matters discussed, so that if a person doesn't feel like spending 2 hours 40 minutes on the whole thing, they can still get a general idea of what the interview was about and watch the fragments which are of most interest to them. I'd, for example, listen to arguments on why he views Bitcoin community as a cult, but I'm not interested enough to spend hours on it.
Currently working on time stamps. Will be ready in a couple of hours! |
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Nobody should be engaging media without proof that the media in question is honest. =>
Talking points such as these are why smart people don't engage you.
You can argue that I'm debating in bad faith and be as subtle as you want in terms of implying that I'm too dumb to deserve replies to the inquiry. But let me ask you this: did you watch/attend any of the Miami conferences? Or the one that's currently taking place in Amsterdam? I won't make any assumptions, but I'll leave a few samples here. Before you consider using "these guys are in a minority" argument, I'll remind you that these conferences have more attendees than BitcoinTalk forum accounts and the amount of followers that the talking heads have should also be taken into consideration. Max Keiser's "fuck Elon" moment: https://youtu.be/GC_h_tz44uwMichael Saylor telling sovereign individuals what they should do with their own money: https://youtu.be/8ZcFahsvFyISaifedean explaining to Jordan Peterson that Bitcoin is "digital energy" (this became a popular meme): https://youtu.be/iJ85fyWx-CkI could probably dig up more stuff about Bitcoin being a "battery", "digital real estate", "element zero", "digital alchemy", and all sorts of silly metaphors. But the concerning part is that people take them seriously. |
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The fact that a lot of people in the community has a libertarian mindset, does not mean that they are part of some extremist cult. We have to remember that anyone challenging the "norm" and finding better alternatives..are in actual fact good for the society. I think the mainstream media are to blame for the "cult" label that are plastered on Bitcoin communities, because they are pushing the hidden agenda of the puppet masters that wants to create that perception. (They are scared of the disruptive potential of the Bitcoin technology)  To be honest here, I won't consider the media for the blame, and any shit OP has got to say, but I consider it embarrassing that OP has been around the community for three months if I'm right, but he/her has failed to observe closely and draw meaning for himself. Folk like this are easily convinced into doing things they aren't supposed to. I'm also very certain to say that, if OP has read the rules here then he shouldn't have brought or started such. That's where you're wrong, I've only been around for 2 weeks. Somehow my podcast is at season 12 and you can find articles of mine about Bitcoin which date back to mid-2017, but it's fine. Don't look too much into it, I like your portrayal better
The fact that a lot of people in the community has a libertarian mindset, does not mean that they are part of some extremist cult. We have to remember that anyone challenging the "norm" and finding better alternatives..are in actual fact good for the society.
Depends, extremism usually isn't very good regardless what it's about. Although, I don't think Bitcoin is subjected to much of it, thankfully. There are though, definitely Bitcoin maximalists which could potentially be seen as harmful depending on your perspective. I find it interesting that the perception is so different here. On Twitter, there are plenty of community members who label themselves as "toxic maximalists", "fundamentalists", "Bitcoin crusaders", "Bitcoin extremists". They will say that anything that is not Bitcoin is a scam, they will argue that even tokens built on top of Bitcoin (Counterparty, Omni, Stacks, RGB, Taro) are scams and there is even a crowd which believes that the Lightning Network is a failure which is not really Bitcoin. What I find most amusing is that Blocsktream tried to offer all the "scammy" features on the Liquid sidechain. And after they spent time calling out tokens for being scams, now their sidechain mostly mines empty blocks because users don't really want to be associated with these scams. That's what you get when there's no nuance and the scam is the tool itself, which is not relative to a network or protocol. Anyway, I got sidetracked a bit. My point is that the responses I got here are visibly different from those I got on Twitter. [moderator's note: consecutive posts merged] |
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The fact that a lot of people in the community has a libertarian mindset, does not mean that they are part of some extremist cult. We have to remember that anyone challenging the "norm" and finding better alternatives..are in actual fact good for the society. I think the mainstream media are to blame for the "cult" label that are plastered on Bitcoin communities, because they are pushing the hidden agenda of the puppet masters that wants to create that perception. (They are scared of the disruptive potential of the Bitcoin technology) Well, the "cult" isn't exactly what the mainstream media describes us. It's also how we show up at conferences worshipping certain individuals (in the past, Andreas Antonopoulos and more recently Michael Saylor), buying the same "Don't trust, verify" merchandise (even if we are not technically competent enough to verify our own code), reading the same books ("The Bitcoin Standard" is in the bookshelf of pretty much every bitcoiner on Twitter) and posting pictures of the same devices (it used to be the Trezor, now the Coldcard is the cool maximalist device). There are community members who spend every day telling their friends and social media followers that everything will be divided by 21 million (the BTC supply) and that Bitcoin is "element zero" in chemistry. There are many nuances, and it seems that every adoption cycle brings in people who are more willing to follow a narrative than to approach Bitcoin critically. You should spend a day reading what's going on in the community chats of Samourai wallet or Coldcard users. I'm convinced that these are bona fide "micro cults". And I get it, I know why this is happening. But this doesn't mean that we should indulge in the shallow "Bitcoin fixes this" mindset. If you spend too much time on Bitcoin Twitter, you will feel like a cult member – as there are even gatekeepers and hound dogs (Mr. Hodl, Dieter Bob) who do nothing but police other people's speech and bully them into a uniform way of thinking. Even if it's for a good cause, I think we should reflect more on how we're actually improving the world. |
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I understand that the adoption - making it a legal tender - of Bitcoin in El Salvador is now considered as one of Bitcoin's historical moments though we can see that things are not going smoothly in El Salvador but as they say this is much better than nothing because this puts Bitcoin really on international scene. In my own point of view, Bitcoin must be adopted by the people and not necessarily by the governments which got state power to do the things that Bitcoin can protect us from. And yes, this is actually a very good interview am gaining a lot of insights from it...thanks for sharing.
Thank you for listening! I also believe that adoption should happen at a grassroots level and should be voluntary, as opposed to having a government authority step in and tell you what to do. At the same time, I respect the efforts of the people who created Bitcoin Beach in El Zonte, of the educators who put together the "Mi Primer Bitcoin" classes, and everyone who tries to make the most of it. Something that I've had to accept is that purely ideological models rarely apply in real life. And sometimes you can either wait for your ideal to emerge, or else try to model the reality around you with the skills that you have and hopefully turn it into something which more closely resembles your own idea. I still believe that the best action that governments can take in relation to Bitcoin adoption is to ignore it, so people naturally discover BTC and prepare for the collapse of the fiat system. But what makes me more sympathetic about El Salvador is that they never used force against people who don't accept BTC yet. So the efforts are still bottom-up, trying to educate every merchant and service provider to use a wallet and understand why self-custody matters. This is also the reason why I'm going there next month: I'll launch a Spanish translation of my magazine and tell everyone that it's open source so they can read, print, modify, distribute, and even sell without asking for my permission. It's something that they can use in their journey and I'm happy to help. |
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Though I'm no fan of top-down adoption and didn't join Bitcoin to deal with governments, I support the event for a very simple reason: I know that, at one point, the government is going to change and the legal tender status of BTC is rather fragile. But I want normal everyday people to be prepared for the inevitable changes and learn more about how to protect themselves against wealth confiscation and the money printer. We should never forget how various governments confiscated gold, land property and everything else from people in history. I am almost sure they will try to do the same thing with Bitcoin in future, maybe not in entire world but very likely it's going to happen in some countries. With this stupid green agenda brainwashing it's just a matter of time when they are going to start targeting Bitcoin miners worldwide, so we better get ready for that. So I've recorded an interview with Kemal and Noor, two of the co-organizers of the Adopting Bitcoin event. If you're planning to visit El Salvador next month, you're definitely going to find this interesting. I don't like how they started adopting Bitcoin in El Salvador with centralized wallet Chivo, but it's still better than nothing. Vlad are you going to El Salvador or not? Yeah, I'm about to buy my ticket. Didn't pull the trigger because I also considered Labitconf. But I finally came to terms with the fact that I can't afford both 😅 |
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We're only a month away from Adopting Bitcoin – the event which takes place in San Salvador, the capital city of the first country which accepted to use BTC as a national currency. Though I'm no fan of top-down adoption and didn't join Bitcoin to deal with governments, I support the event for a very simple reason: I know that, at one point, the government is going to change and the legal tender status of BTC is rather fragile. But I want normal everyday people to be prepared for the inevitable changes and learn more about how to protect themselves against wealth confiscation and the money printer. So I've recorded an interview with Kemal and Noor, two of the co-organizers of the Adopting Bitcoin event. If you're planning to visit El Salvador next month, you're definitely going to find this interesting. The recording is available on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/episode/073uyo6G9jSF9sCEJ5gcoU?si=HYl_zmbMTgujLfyYKjMxpQ, Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bitcoin-takeover-podcast/id1451766883?i=1000581615885, and every major podcast streaming service. But if you're privacy minded, I recommend that you open this link in Tor browser – no registration is required and I don't care to know anything about your identity or whereabouts. Big tech options are only there for convenience: https://bitcoin-takeover.com/audio/?name=2022-10-05_s12_e3_kemal__noor_on_the_adopting_bitcoin_conference_in_el_salvador.mp3Speaking of big tech and convenience, you can find the interview on YouTube in full video. https://youtu.be/F59G33zYKfkI also wrote an article about the whole affair, just in case you're into reading: https://bitcoin-takeover.com/s12-e3-kemal-noor-adopting-bitcoin-conference-el-salvador/Enjoy! |
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