The Let's Talk Bitcoin Network

My guests are Jeff Gallas and Rootz of Fulmo, an open source company dedicated to the research and development of the Lightning Network. They are the organizers of the Lightning Hackdays and the first Lightning Conference that took place in Berlin in 2019 and are supporters of the RaspiBlitz project, a Lightning and Bitcoin full node. "If you run a Lightning node you're a part of replacing the VISA and Mastercard networks." - Rootz Topics:Development of the Lightning Network and the RaspiBlitzAdoption rate of the Lightning NetworkAccessibility improvementsHow many payments will be possible on the Lightning NetworkMost exciting Lightning projectsWhy it's important to run your own nodeRaspiBlitz integrations, LND and c-lightningResources and RaspiBlitz communities Shownotes on the episode page

'œSandwiched between Guatemala and Honduras, El Salvador '" the smallest and most densely populated country in Central America, with an average GDP per capita of around $3,500 '" is a most unlikely ground zero for a financial revolution.' - Alex Gladstein Gladstein is back with the full story of Bitcoin and El Salvador. What it's like on the ground, the people it all started with, the responsibility we have as a community, & the history that gives much needed perspective to the actions of the political regime. You don't want to miss this one. Check out the original article and tons of other incredible work by Gladstein & others at Bitcoin Magazine: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/the-polarity-of-bitcoin-in-el-salvador Endless thanks to Bitcoin Magazine and the LTB Network for the incredible content they bring to the Bitcoin ecosystem. Check out our amazing sponsors below that keep this show alive, and all the things made audible for your listening pleasure! ' Get sats back on everything with the Fold Card! Check them out at guyswann.com/fold for 20% off the Spin+ Card! ' And keep those sats SAFE with the BitBox02 hardware wallet. 5% off with discount code "GUY" at guyswann.com/bitbox

Show Notes: On this episode of the Unhashed Podcast, we talk Solana node troubles, Evergrande instability, Robinhood crypto withdrawals, how to pronounce Erdogan's first name, and how Ryan Selkis hates when you don't buy tickets to his events. BREAKING NEWS Friend of the show Riccardo 'œFluffy Pony' Spagni is out of Jail! Congrats Fuffy. In a tweet, Fuffy says 'œI am very pleased that the U.S. court has released me. I am actively working with my attorneys on a way to return to South Africa as soon as possible so I can address this matter and get it behind me once and for all. That's what I've always wanted to do.' On September 14, Solana node operators are coordinating a 'œrestart' of the high-speed blockchain Tuesday in an attempt to bring the stuttering network back online. 'œThe validator community elected to coordinate a restart of the network' and is preparing a 'œnew release' that will right the frozen blockchain, according to an afternoon tweet from the Solana Foundation. In Solana's Discord server, developers distributed restart instructions at 3:21 p.m. Eastern time. The outage began early Tuesday after 'œresource exhaustion' on the network brought blockchain validation to an hours-long halt. On-chain activity froze across Solana's multibillion-dollar ecosystem of trading, staking and lending projects.A source familiar with the matter told CoinDesk that the outage 'œimpacts everything built on Solana, but the issue is the underlying [layer 1].'Tuesday's outage came amid booming interest in Solana, a network seeking to attract Wall Street usage whose token has been on fire since late August. Investors have flocked to Solana as a low-fee platform for decentralized finance (DeFi). The disruption was caused by bot trading of Grape Protocol's Tuesday token offering, founder Anatoly Yakovenko said on Twitter. It is the second time in two weeks that Solana's mainnet cluster experienced 'œinstability,' according to a Messari research note reviewed by CoinDesk. A flood of transactions pushed the network past its limits early Tuesday, Solana's status account tweeted shortly after 3 p.m. Eastern time. The activity triggered a forking that knocked multiple nodes offline. Engineers tried and failed to triage the problem, according to Solana. It's not unheard of for blockchain networks to experience service disruptions. Solana's mainnet is still in beta mode; it last experienced an outage in December, another source said. Last week's hiccup was also related to a resource exhaustion event. 'œIt's good for people to understand that Solana mainnet is still clearly in beta,' said a source building one of Solana's popular DeFi protocols interrupted by the outage. 'œI have faith in the Solana core contributors and validators to resolve this issue promptly.' Engineers were rushing to push a patch to Solana node runners, multiple sources told CoinDesk. Once it's ready and running across 66% of validators (a supermajority on the network) Solana is expected to come back online. Until then, the ecosystem with over $11 billion in total value locked (TVL) is in wait-and-see mode. Activity remains frozen at block #96538485. It is unclear what implications the Tuesday outage may have for Solana. One source in the developer community pointed out that some projects have time-sensitive operations, like liquidations and IDO launches. Those could become thorny the longer the network remains down. Colin put together a price quote sheet if you wanted to run a Solana node here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1rc43ZdM7ocsGmxf7VgLlXubUyVlxyrj_vZpKNiHbuZU/edit?usp=sharing Evergrande is China's largest property developer and was up until recently one of the most valuable companies in the world. However, most analysts now believe Evergrande is on the verge of insolvency and won't be able to meet its mountainous debt obligations without direct government interventions within the next few weeks as it struggles to pay its 4 million subcontractors and is unable to finish properties it is holding deposits on from 1.5 million properties. The crunch occurred because of changes made by the CCP in August of 2020 to the amount of debt Chinese developers could take on. Evergrande was accepting deposits from buyers and was then leveraging that money to borrow more money to expand ops and grow. But with the new rule change, they lost access to the spigot of money. In China, real estate is almost the only asset people invest in, and sometimes it takes generations to save up enough money to make a down payment. Many Chinese people may not get their money back if they invested and put down payments on properties under development by Evergrande. What does this have to do with Bitcoin? Well, the fallout of that collapse is so large that it is affecting large swathes of investors the world over. As Evergrande's fallout affects debt markets, all other markets are affected, especially risky, speculative markets like Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. At least, that's the theory. Robinhood is finally testing Bitcoin and crypto withdrawals, as well as a new digital hot wallet, Bloomberg reported on Monday. The update comes after the past year of broad criticism of Robinhood for, among other things, not allowing users to control their own Bitcoin private keys. The firm repeatedly hinted at enabling such features without delivering any evidence that such products were being developed. Robinhood's new hot wallet and Bitcoin and crypto transfer feature announcement also comes after a mounting demand by customers. Bloomberg reported that evidence of such features has appeared in a beta version of the trading platform's iPhone app. Rather than providing photos or other evidence of such features, Bloomberg stated that 'œThe software includes a hidden image portraying a waitlist page' for users to sign up, and attributed the discovery of said features to software developer Steve Moser. Recep Erdogan '" the firebrand Turkish president '" has declared war on Bitcoin. In the aftermath of a sweeping ban on the use of cryptocurrencies back in April, the leader is aiming to assert financial control ahead of launching the digital Lira. While the central bank was not opposed to the utilisation of digital currency, Erdogan believes it faces conflict with cryptocurrencies. 'œWe are in a war against Bitcoin,' he said. 'œBecause we will continue on the road with our money, which is our fundamental identity in this matter.' The president commented during a national youth meeting with representatives from 81 Turkish provinces, following questions about the central bank's perceptions of cryptocurrencies. Many Turks have turned to cryptocurrency as a hedge on the volatility of the Lira in forex markets, and crypto has become a hot topic in Istanbul ahead of the proposal of new legislation aiming to regulate cryptocurrencies. Regulations will pave the way for the full implementation of the digital Lira, which Erdogan's government is aiming to launch by 2023. From ZeroHedge, 'œChina's War Against Crypto Is Officially Ramping Up (Again). In several Chinese provinces, inspections of companies have "intensified", with an eye toward targeting illegal mining at places like colleges, research institutions and data centers, according to the report. One miner in China told Bloomberg that his operations "remain intact" because he "regularly switches to new facilities to house his equipment" which is made up of "no more than 100 machines at one location". Hebei province has asked companies for a self-compliance check to ensure they are not mining by September 30. China has said that crypto mining would 'œseriously affect economic and social development and directly threaten national security." The statement says it would "disrupt" financial order. This news follows tighter restrictions in China across the board, from ending most visa's of foreign english teachers, limiting time on tiktok to 40 minutes per day and video game playing to three hours a week among teenagers. Self proclaimed 'œTwoBit Idiot' Ryan Selkis is running for Senate. In a tweet he stated, 'œIf you're wondering when I actually decided to run for Senate, it was when these fuckers came to my event, didn't buy a ticket, and served one of the speakers a subpoena. Enough talk. More war on our out of control regulatory state.

Many crypto industry titans - including Vitalik Buterin - believe ZK Rollups are the key to Ethereum's scalability. With DeFi exchange dYdX generating over $2 BILLION in daily volume on Starkware, a ZK Rollup solution, I'm excited to chat with Starkware founders about: Why ZK-Rollups are the future vs. other Layer 2sStarkware vs. Optimism vs. Arbitrum: who wins?Can Fast Layer 1s like Solana compete with Starkware?Host: Jason Choi @mrjasonchoi . Not financial advice. ------------ Sponsors ------------- PARASWAP is the best place to trade your tokens and get the best price in DeFi today. Get started on paraswap.io/blockcrunch SOLANA: The Solana ecosystem is growing at a rapid pace and it's a great place to build your project or get involved with the community. Go to solana.com/blockcrunch to learn more! ------------ Disclosures ------------- Disclaimer: Jason Choi is a General Partner at Spartan Capital, a subsidiary of The Spartan Group. All opinions expressed by Jason and podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of The Spartan Group and any of its subsidiaries

On this episode of the Unhashed Podcast, Colin and Mario go off our usual content track and interview Aella Girl, notable internet personality, constructor of insightful Twitter polls, and outspoken sex worker. Aella shares with us the experience of working at OnlyFans, dealing with stigma and taboos, and we explore the intersection of sex work and cryptocurrency.

My guest is Adam Back the inventor of Hashcash, that was used as the proof-of-work method in Bitcoin. His work is cited in the Bitcoin whitepaper as well as in the Tor Browser whitepaper. Adam is a seasoned cryptographer with a PhD in computer science and distributed systems. As co-founder and CEO of Blockstream he is building the infrastructure for the internet of the future. Topics: Blockstream's funding and future plans Decentralization of mining Greenlight: Lightning nodes for everyone how Bitcoin supports green energy Starlink vs. Blockstream satellites Bitcoin R & D and innovations in Altcoins Inflation bug in Bitcoin Simplicity: Bitcoin smart contracts Strategies to de-risk ETFs dangers to Bitcoin How to make more bitcoin out of your bitcoin DeFi on Bitcoin What Adam Back is doing in his spare time The Future of Blockstream and Bitcoin How Bitcoin has changed Adam Back Shownotes on the episode page

My guest is Andreas M. Antonopoulos one of the worlds foremost experts on Bitcoin and open blockchains. Andreas is an educator, author of five books and an excellent speaker. His new co-authored book "Mastering the Lightning Network" will be published at the end of 2021. I was especially excited to be able to speak with him in person while we both visited Berlin. Our topics: the state of Bitcoin in 2021 Taproot and why it's important for Bitcoin the battle between regulators and DeFi staircase of financial sovereignty future of the Lightning Network immutability of Bitcoin what is sound money? Ethereum or Bitcoin will he write another Altcoin book? Shownotes on the episode page

As El Salvador announces Bitcoin as legal tender, and the world looks on in wonder at this amazing example of progress, we host a fascinating roundtable conversation on the important aspects of this news. CK, Aaron Van Wirdum, Alex Gladstein, Mike Peterson, Romero Martinez, and several others talk about the rollout, the public reception, Bukele's role, and first impressions of the Chivo Wallet. The conversation also covers some of the background leading up to this momentous time, and a few surprising experiences from our panel, including the ability to pay for a breakfast at McDonald's already! We look at challenges to wider adoption and acceptance of Bitcoin as the main currency, how integration will work with regard to enterprise business, and how the infrastructure and power grid of the country might be able to support Bitcoin mining as it scales. So, to get the latest on these hugely important shifts, and how a small country is leading the charge for the rest of the world to follow, make sure to tune in!

Hosts: Christian Keroles and Ansel Lindner In this episode of Bitcoin Magazine's 'œFed Watch' podcast, we respond to Chairman Powell's comments at Jackson Hole on 27 August. We listen to several important sound bites and discuss it along the way. Powell was expected to announce a Fed taper, where they begin to shrink their monthly purchase of securities in QE. We have often said that Powell is somewhat of a straight shooter relative to other central banks of the past and present. We also are hesitant to ever agree with a Federal Reserve Chairman, but in this case, we find many points to agree on. Bitcoin is beginning to naturally fit into every discussion on central banks and the international financial system. We touch on bitcoin throughout this episode.

In this week's episode, the tit is moving (again) so Ruben Bryan and Colin walk through the finer points why DeFi insurance DAOs also need insurance, we give another toot to El Sal legal tender law, Tips on Twitter, and, finally, an analysis of the first live Dapp on Cardano testnet! Look out! From CoinTelegraph, In a candid open letter, the lead contributor of Cover and Ruler Protocol, 'œDeFi Ted,' announced the protocol will close its virtual doors in the near future, citing a mass developer exit as the primary reason for the project's conclusion. Launched earlier this year, the Ethereum-based decentralized finance (DeFi) insurance marketplace enabled users to stake Cover tokens as collateral and receive insurance payouts if their assets in other DeFi protocols are hacked or rug-pulled. In December 2020, the Cover protocol suffered a catastrophic exploit when a hacker minted 40 quintillion tokens, stratospherically increasing the token supply and effectively rendering the project valueless, a hypothesis confirmed with the consequential 97% price plummet. in a drastic turn of events becoming more commonplace in the market, the hacker consciously returned the funds, and attached the stern message, 'œNext time, take care of your own shit.' Despite the compassionate return of funds, serious damage was inflicted on the protocol both in terms of tokenomics value and cultural reputability. From FastCompany.com, On Sept. 7, 2021, El Salvador will become the first country to make bitcoin legal tender. The government even went a step further in promoting the cryptocurrency's use by giving $30 in free bitcoins to citizens who sign up for its national digital wallet, known as Chivo, or 'œcool' in English. Foreigners who invest three bitcoins in the country'"currently about $140,000'"will be granted residency. Legal tender refers to money'"typically coins and banknotes'"that must be accepted if offered in payment of a debt. The front of every U.S. banknote states, 'œThis note is legal tender for all debts public and private.' This statement has been enshrined in federal law in various forms since the late 1800s. In celebration of the El Sal law, a grassroots twitter effort has started to gain momentum for a market buy of $30 per person. From Michael Saylor, 'œOn September 7, El Salvador will officially begin using #Bitcoin as its national currency alongside the U.S. dollar. Every cyber hornet I know is planning to buy $30 in BTC tomorrow in solidarity with the people of #ElSalvador and their leader @nayibbukele. Will you join us? Twitter is now testing the ability to tip users in Bitcoin through Jack Maller's lightning network app Strike, according to The Block and a post on MacRumors. According to The Block, the new lightning service will be Strike enabled and also support Square's forthcoming hardware wallet. The company also lists Blue Wallet and Wallet of Satoshi as examples of custodial wallets and Breez, Muun, Phoenix and Zap as examples of non-custodial wallets. Twitter will also use Strike to produce Bitcoin invoices. For now, Twitter users will need a Strike account to receive tips in Bitcoin. "We use Strike to generate Bitcoin Lightning invoices so you'll need to connect your account to accept Bitcoin tips,' the instructions read. The Bitcoin developments at Twitter follow through with promises by CEO Jack Dorsey made in July. It was implied then that Bitcoin would be enabled in the Tip Jar service. He suggested also that Bitcoin From @Sassal0X on twitter, The first dapp went live on Cardano today and ADA fanboys are finally discovering that you can't peer review your way out of fundamental issues. From the r/Cardano reddit, 'œLooks good, but when i try to swap things, all im getting is 'œTransaction Fail: UTXOs are being used this block. Please wait 20-40 seconds and try again' Reply : Unfortunately, and I hate to say it because it might be a bit painful, critic have been discussing this for years trying to understand how in the world Cardano is going to implement smart contracts with a UTXO model (which effectively means an app like Uniswap can only handle one TX per block). They've yet to an answer to this question. ' People need to ask such stuff to Charles on his YouTube AMA streams, rather than his thoughts on Afghanistan or something. Reply: They did and he laughed it off. Said people should learn more about eUTXO and it's a non-issue. --- Reply from @LarsBrunjes, the 'œDirector of Education at @InputOutputHK' and PhD in Pure Mathematics 'œYou are right, this is an issue. But our scientists are already thinking of 'œconcurrent state machines' that can address this. The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating the startup behind one of the biggest cryptocurrency exchanges, as regulators probe further into parts of the digital-asset market that have resisted oversight, according to people familiar with the matter. Regulators are examining Uniswap Labs, the main developer of the world's largest decentralized exchange, called Uniswap, the people said. Enforcement attorneys are seeking information about how investors use Uniswap and how it is marketed, the people said. A spokesman for Uniswap Labs said the company is 'œcommitted to complying with the laws and regulations governing our industry and to providing information to regulators that will assist them with any inquiry.' An SEC spokeswoman declined to comment, saying the agency doesn't confirm or deny investigations. The developers often say they no longer control the protocols, which could diminish their liability under securities laws. SEC Chairman Gary Gensler has said DeFi projects aren't immune from regulatory scrutiny. They may still be controlled by developers or middlemen that benefit from incentives such as trading fees and digital tokens that give holders governance rights over the program, he has said. '" https://archive.is/ewYN

Bitcoin can be a daunting thing to learn about. It involves the study of several different fields, from computer science to economics. At Bitcoin Magazine, we always hope to be able to educate our readers on the basics of Bitcoin. We offer a guides section, and have a large selection of books in our store. One of my parts about the magazine are contributor articles designed to simplify complex ideas. Nameless, one of our contributors here at the magazine, has sent in several of these articles, including 'œA Gentle Introduction To The Lightning Network,' 'œSo, What Are Bitcoin Miners Actually Doing?' and 'œAn Overview Of Bitcoin's Cryptography.' All of these articles are extremely high quality, and they take some of the more difficult to grasp subjects in Bitcoin and simplify them for the reader.

'œFarzan and her family traveled by foot, car and train thousands of miles through Iran and Turkey, finally making it to Germany in 2017. Along the way, dishonest middlemen and common thieves stole everything they brought with them, including their jewelry and cash. At one point, their boat crashed, and more belongings sank to the bottom of the Mediterranean. It's a tragic story familiar to so many refugees. But in this case, something was different. Through it all, Farzan was able to keep her bitcoin, because she hid the seed to her Bitcoin wallet on a piece of tiny, innocuous-looking paper. Thieves could not take what they could not find.' - Alex Gladstein You don't want to miss another excellent piece in the incredible ongoing works by Alex Gladstein. Thanks to Bitcoin Magazine for this incredible work and continuing to put out so much incredible stuff for the Bitcoin space! Check out the article below for links to dig further and a huge collection of other excellent works at Bitcoin Magazine: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/bitcoin-financial-freedom-in-afghanistan Huge thanks to the amazing Bitcoin Magazine & LTBNetwork for the incredible content they produce in the Bitcoin space! Don't forget to check out our awesome sponsors! 5% off the BitBox02 with code "GUY," your bank grade digital vault for your Bitcoin keys from Shiftcrypto.chAnd secure your Bitcoin future by starting your automatic savings plan at SwanBitcoin.com/guy

My guests today are Vitus Zeller and Richard Taylor my team mates at Team Satoshi, a decentralized sports team. We're talking about the interconnections between Bitcoin and sports and how you can participate in this movement. Introduction Vitus and Richard What is Bitcoin for you? Why are you active in the Bitcoin space? What is Team Satoshi and its goal Bitcoin and sports - where is the connection How do you stay healthy? Mental fitness First adventure of Vitus, Satoshi Freeathlon Road to Bitcoin Icebathing Shownotes on the episode page

On this episode of the Unhashed Podcast, we talk Coinbase 2FA slipups, the normalization of Ethereum consensus failures, anti-bitcoin protests in El Salvador, and IMF & CCP critiques of bitcoin. Lastly, we encourage Colin to stop farting on people on planes. Customers of leading United States crypto exchange Coinbase have spent the weekend panicking after the exchange mistakenly sent emails to users stating that their two-factor authentication (2FA) settings had been changed. On Friday, Coinbase accidentally sent the email to 125,000 of its customers, resulting in widespread public backlash. Coinbase took to Twitter on Sunday to apologize for the mishap, stating, 'œWe're laser-focused on building trust and security into the crypto community so that the open financial system we all want is a reality. We recognize that issues like this can hurt that trust.' Despite Coinbase's apology, many of its users reported taking significant measures in response to the email while fearing that their accounts were being targeted by hackers, including overhauling security settings and liquidating their crypto holdings. Comments on the exchange's social media also suggest that numerous customers were unable to access the Coinbase app for several days after the incident. 'œWe will continue to work to gain back the trust of every one of our customers who was impacted by those notifications,' Coinbase added. The firm also announced it is reimbursing users with $100 worth of Bitcoin (BTC). '" https://cointelegraph.com/news/users-panic-after-coinbase-mistakenly-sends-2fa-reset-notices-to-customers Ethereum experienced a chain split due a number of network validators, also called nodes, failing to upgrade their software. On Aug. 24, the developer team behind the popular Ethereum software client Geth released an emergency hotfix to a security vulnerability in its code that would have prevented certain users from producing blocks. The Go Ethereum team had disclosed a vulnerability on Aug. 18, saying they would release a patch, but did not specify the exact nature of the vulnerability in an effort to prevent an attack: 'œThe exact attack vector will be provided at a later date to give node operators and dependent downstream projects time to update their nodes and software,' wrote Ethereum team lead Pƒter Szilƒgyi in Aug. 24 GitHub patch notes. However, it would seem some users identified the exploit that was hotfixed by the Geth team and are currently exploiting older versions of the Geth software. Though the Geth team emphasized that all users should upgrade their software immediately, only about 30% of users upgraded to the latest version, according to data from ethernodes.org. As background, Geth is the most relied-upon software to connect to the Ethereum blockchain, being run by roughly 75% of the users. This is not the first time Ethereum has experienced a chain split due to users running outdated versions of Geth. In November, the Ethereum network saw a similar disturbance after users failed to upgrade to the latest Geth release, version 1.10.X. At the time, Geth developers said the event was due to a lack of communication about the urgency of the upgrade. '" https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2021/08/27/ethereum-faces-chain-split-as-node-operators-fail-to-update-geth-hotfix/ Hundreds of protesters took to the streets of El Salvador to raise their voices against President Nayib Bukele's decision to make Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) legal tender. What Happened: On Sept 7, Bukele will introduce the much-debated Bitcoin Law in the country. According to the text of this Law, all economic agents must accept Bitcoin along with the dollar as a means of payment. Bukele says that the Bitcoin Law will benefit the people and save close to $400 million in remittance commissions. In addition, it will guarantee instant and more secure financial transactions. But the people of El Salvador are not entirely convinced with it. Hundreds of protesters, including workers, veterans, and pensioners, marched through San Salvador to voice their concerns about the use of cryptocurrency. They are worried that with the law, they will be paid in crypto for their pensions and welfare instead of the US dollar. There is also a concern that people don't understand the technology needed to use crypto-currency. "We know this coin fluctuates drastically. Its value changes from one second to another, and we will have no control over it," Stanley Quinteros, a member of the Supreme Court of Justice's workers' union, told Reuters. Protesters are wary that the introduction of Bitcoin may encourage corruption which is already seen within its borders. However, as per the law, it does not mean that everyone has to conduct their transactions in the cryptocurrency. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) heavily criticized El Salvador's decision to adopt Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) as a legal tender. Alongside a blog post published on Sunday, the IMF tweeted that the risk of "privately issued crypto assets like Bitcoin" makes it so that "making them equivalent to a national currency is an inadvisable shortcut." In its blog post, the IMF admits that digital assets "have the potential to provide cheaper and faster payments, enhance financial inclusion, improve resilience and competition among payment providers, and facilitate cross-border transfers." Still, the institution points out that creating the "requires significant investment as well as difficult policy choices." For this reason, the IMF considers adopting Bitcoin to be a shortcut on El Salvador's part: it adopted a preexistent system instead of creating a custom-made one. The institution admits that many cryptos are secure, easy to access, and cheap to transact but claims that "in most cases risks and costs outweigh potential benefits." For instance, the post claims that crypto's "value is just too volatile and unrelated to the real economy." The IMF also warned that the widespread adoption of a crypto asset such as Bitcoin could hurt macroeconomic stability. The regulator claims that "if goods and services were priced in both a real currency and a crypto asset, households and businesses would spend significant time and resources choosing which money to hold as opposed to engaging in productive activities." Furthermore, adopting crypto exposes exchange rate risk if taxes were quoted in advance in it, while expenditures remained mostly priced in fiat currency or the reverse. Lastly, the IMF raises concern that Bitcoin mining consumes "an enormous amount of electricity" and consequently, "the ecological implications of adopting these crypto assets as a national currency could be dire." This week, the People's Bank of China said Bitcoin has no value. Bitcoin, and other cryptocurrencies "are not legal tenders and have no actual value support," Deputy Director of the Financial Consumer Rights Protection Bureau of the People's Bank of China, Yin Youping, said in the local Chinese language press on August 27. And China is not the only one. On August 13, Russia's Central Bank called it a 'œtechnological financial pyramid scheme.' First Deputy Governor of the Bank of Russia, Sergey Shvetsov, likened buying Bitcoin to "entering a minefield" and said the local stock exchange should not list any companies that trade in Bitcoin (think the local version of Coinbase). UK central bankers said the same a month earlier, on July 18, when the Bank of England's FinTech Director, Tom Mutton, said 'œBitcoin, given its performance shortcomings and energy inefficiency, is in no way a relevant comparison for the sort of technology we might use in a central bank digital currency,' Coindesk reported him saying. And also...the US - On July 16, Jerome Powell said during testimony to Congress that the Fed's ongoing research into a digital dollar would probably just render Bitcoin obsolete. 'œYou wouldn't need stablecoins, you wouldn't need cryptocurrencies, if you had a digital dollar,' he said. And finally, Japan in late May, Bank of Japan governor Haruhiko Kuroda said Bitcoin was basically a casino chip used for highly speculative gambling - 'œNo one really uses Bitcoin as a means of settlement.' Market Rebellion '" $DOGE accounted for 17% of Robinhood's transactional revenue in Q2 '" https://twitter.com/MarketRebels/status/1428177769855336449 Tascha '" If you make a NFT of a real diamond, and the diamond itself gets destroyed in a fire tomorrow, you still have the same asset. Because the token still exists and is in limited supply just as before. Nothing has changed. What NFT is doing to the concept of asset, few understand. '" https://twitter.com/RealNatashaChe/status/1429576700346748938 Mikeinspace '" Ethereum has been engineered to thrive in a permissive regulatory environment while Bitcoin has been engineered to thrive in a restrictive regulatory environment. So the "big bet" on the future of crypto hinges on one's perspective on the future of the regulatory environment. '" https://twitter.com/mikeinspace/status/1429986344487591940 a void (leaks) '" Wow. Craig Wright is paying for his litigation by taking out a loan against the 'œTulip Trust' coins, to be paid back to Calvin Ayre. Coins for which Craig has testified (and his lawyer confirmed) he does not have the private keys. '" https://twitter.com/Tak_Horigoshi/status/142985715743289344

After a special guest runs into an unexpected event, Colin Bryan and Mario are left wondering what they should talk about. It's a good thing Bitcoin is never boring. In this weeks UNSCRIPTED episode, we let Mario shill all his bags, including Blockstream's $3.2B valuation, Ledn's Proof of reserves, Coinbase's new phone support line and how a drug dealer got his BTC back from Swedish authorities using this one weird trick. Discussion on Blockstream $3.2 B valuation, going to start mining Discussion on Ledn Proof of reserve Coinbase has announced a new support phone line for customers who believe their account has been compromised by outside actors. Users will be able to speak to a live support agent, who can kick off an investigation immediately. In an industry where support tickets and emails are the standard method of communication, Coinbase expects that this implementation could help users save valuable time when dealing with this type of crisis. Man bites dog, crypto edition The Swedish government has been forced to return over $1.5 million in bitcoin to a drug dealer after its value surged while he was in custody. Authorities in Sweden seized 36 BTC from the drug dealer, worth just under $150,000 at the time of his prosecution two years ago, according to a report Friday by U.K. newspaper The Telegraph. By the time the Swedish Enforcement Authority came to auction off the bitcoin, its value had appreciated to the extent that only three needed to be sold for the original value to be recouped. The authority must now return the remaining 33 bitcoin to the drug dealer, which prosecutor Tove Kullberg has described as 'œunfortunate.

Austrian economics is a very common topic of discussion and study within the bitcoin community. Being the base economic theory upon which we find bitcoin resting, it makes sense that understanding this would be a primary lead for someone to get into bitcoin. Josef T„'tek, one of our regular contributors here at Bitcoin Magazine, is an example of this. T„'tek has written some fantastic articles for us, including 'œYour Financial Data Is Not Private, Bitcoin Can Fix That,' 'œHere's Why Bitcoin Will Rejuvenate Your Hope In Life,' and 'œBitcoin Is The Sustainable Money Europe Deserves.' Bullish on both bitcoin and on life, T„'tek maintains an optimistic outlook that bears witness to the good bitcoin is capable of doing. In our interview, we discussed how his foundations in Austrian economics lead him to Bitcoin, and how the reverse is often true of bitcoiners. We then discussed how Bitcoin has impacted his life, both in personal preferences and in his career. We touched on what he believes is the most important part of people's bitcoin education '" in his opinion, an understanding of fiat. Finally, we discussed what he is looking forward to in the space, and his bullish price thoughts. He said, 'œin the short term, we are usually too optimistic. In the long term, we are too pessimistic." Check out the podcast above and be sure to read our written interview.

Fiat cash, aka government-issued currency, may be singing its swan song. The good news? Bitcoin and free markets have the potential to help people claim back their sovereignty. Chris Gimmer joins us on the show to talk about why the state of markets is so dismal, how government intervention has played a major role in this demise, and why Bitcoin is the way forward through the mess. Chris is the Co-founder of Snappa, a top-of-the-range design and templating SaaS product, as well as the creator of the bitcoin dashboard, Bitbo.io. In this episode, Chris dives into how we can transition from a fiat frame of mind into a Bitcoin-centered system. Discussing how Snappa is using BTC as their reserve asset, we hear first hand how this has enabled them to weather the economic downtown caused by COVID-19. In an ever-evolving global situation, Chris shares about why he's moving from Canada to the U.S., and how using a divisible, portable currency allows both brands and individuals to break out of the limitations provided by fiat currency, despite their geographical location. Tune in as we explore why we should be considering a bigger, future-oriented picture by investing in BTC.

Understanding bitcoin can change your life. Once you do understand it, your entire system for evaluating what is worthy of your time, money and effort is also changed. I discussed this idea and more with The Bitcoin Conference's latest addition to the team, Brad, on Twitter as @Chad_Capital. He and I discussed how he first heard about Bitcoin, which was a result of the infectious excitement many feel about Bitcoin once they understand it. In addition to this, we discussed the power of memes and how they, through humor, convey commonly understood ideas of the absurdity of the fiat world we live in. We finally finish off with what he is looking forward to in the bitcoin space, including a shoutout for Bitcoin 2022, and his final bullish price prediction.

Location: Remotely Date: Tuesday, 30th March Company: SupportAssange.wauland.de Role: N/A A world where the people are afraid to hold institutions and governments accountable for their actions is a dystopian reality. Julian Assange founded Wikileaks in 2006 to defend against injustices, hypocrisy, and tyranny; he published the truth. And for these actions, he has spent ten years fighting for his freedom. Today is a call to action for everyone aligned with Bitcoin, freedom of speech, freedom of press, censorship-resistance, and justice. Take the time and donate to the defence of Julian Assange. In this special episode, I talk to Julian Assange's father and brother, John and Gabriel Shipton. My friend Janine also joins us to discuss the plague of malice regarding Julian's case, his alignment with the Bitcoin ethos, and how you can support his defence.

Tranchess (@tranchess) is a new structured DeFi product offering a fixed income and Bitcoin exposure to users. Within one week of its launch, Tranchess has attracted $500M of capital in the protocol. I invited Tranchess co-founder, Danny Chong, to discuss the tranche product landscape, who are the next big wave of users in DeFi, and the challenges of creating sustainable protocol incentives. Host: Jason Choi (@MrJasonChoi). This show is not financial advice; show host and guest may hold some of the assets discussed. ------------- Sponsors ------------- PARASWAP is the best place to trade your tokens and get the best price in DeFi today. Get started on paraswap.io/blockcrunch SOLANA: The Solana ecosystem is growing at a rapid pace and it's a great place to build your project or get involved with the community. Go to solana.com/blockcrunch to learn more! ------------- Disclosures ------------- Musical credits: Underground Stars by Loxbeats https://spoti.fi/34tPBBO Creative Commons '" Attribution 3.0 Unported '" CC BY 3.0 Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/underground-stars Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/vpJDMD2EzkA Disclaimer: Jason Choi is a General Partner at Spartan Capital, a subsidiary of The Spartan Group. All opinions expressed by Jason and podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of The Spartan Group and any of its subsidia