Episodes

Soap Miner joins to discuss building a Bitcoin only natural soap business and finding his first customers on Nostr. We get into teaching himself soapmaking, running a Lightning node with Alby Hub, why Bitcoiners are fiercely loyal customers, and refusing to accept dollars. Then we discuss Bitcoin as money, self custody, merchant adoption through Square, ETFs and treasury companies, Camp Nakamoto, BIP 110, personal responsibility, and why anyone with a useful skill can start earning Bitcoin. Soa...

Matthew Vuk joins to discuss Bark, Second’s Bitcoin-only implementation of the Ark protocol. We get into how Ark wallets enable Lightning, on-chain, and instant Ark payments without managing channels or liquidity, plus VTXOs, delegated refreshes, unilateral exits, cloud backups, fees, privacy, and denial-of-service protections. Then we discuss running Ark servers, using Bark to power Cashu mints and African mobile-money gateways, proof of reserves, comparisons with Spark and Arkade, and Second’s...

NoGood joins to discuss his journey from childhood drawing and graphic design to developing one of Bitcoin’s most distinctive visual styles. We get into cypherpunk aesthetics, Japanese street culture, creating the Citadel Dispatch artwork, and what AI-generated images mean for artists, authenticity, and digital provenance. Then we discuss his limited edition self published book, building No Good Radio as a 24/7 Nostr-powered stream, accepting zaps, integrating open protocols into his website, an...

Seth For Privacy joins to chat Radar, a new app that adds Bitcoin payments directly into Signal. We discuss forking Signal while keeping full account and chat compatibility, why they built on Signal’s network instead of Nostr or SimpleX, donating back to Signal Foundation, and how end-to-end encryption keeps payments invisible even to Signal. Then we go deep on the tech: Spark versus Ark trust models, unilateral exit, privacy tradeoffs, Lightning interoperability, seed backups tied to your Signa...

Eric Sirion, Joscha, and Hermann join to discuss Fedimint being used in the wild in South Africa. We get into Bitcoin Ekasi’s live five-of-seven federation, running guardians on Start9, how Iroh removes DNS and networking pain, backups, uptime, and why federated custody can be a powerful middle ground between self custody and custodial wallets. We discuss Lightning gateways, Conduit wallet, MoneyBadger payments, eCash privacy, zero-fee internal transactions, on-chain UTXO consolidation, and why ...

Jason joins to discuss Tando, a Bitcoin payments app in Kenya that connects Lightning to M-PESA. We get into why M-PESA dominates Kenyan payments, how Tando lets Bitcoiners spend sats anywhere M-PESA is accepted, and why pragmatic fiat bridges help bootstrap real Bitcoin circular economies. Then we discuss phone numbers as financial identities, Lightning addresses for Kenyan phone numbers, KYC-free Bitcoin flows, merchant adoption, AI-assisted development, upcoming Kenya Bitcoin events, and the ...

Anjan joins for a six month update on The Stringer Foundation, his effort to build the OpenSats of independent journalism. We get into Stringer’s inaugural 25 finalists, their Courage Index for evaluating journalists working under threat, New York Times recognition, funding models for frontline reporters, mental health support, and why truthful human-sourced information matters more in the age of AI. Then we discuss Kyntab, a personal SOS app for journalists and people at risk, plus a deeper deb...

Hermann Buhr Vivier of Bitcoin Ekasi and Carel Van Wyk of MoneyBadger join for an emergency dispatch on South Africa’s proposed Bitcoin restrictions. We get into draft exchange control rules that would bring Bitcoin under a harsh regulatory framework, including forced disclosure of private keys, undefined transaction thresholds, limits on peer-to-peer commerce, mandatory use of centralized crypto service providers, and potential forfeiture. Then we discuss why South Africa’s grassroots Bitcoin a...

Eugene Jarecki joins to discuss his new Julian Assange documentary The Six Billion Dollar Man, filmed over seven years across 15 countries under high security conditions. We get into WikiLeaks as a breakthrough for whistleblowers, Bitcoin’s early role in keeping WikiLeaks alive after Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal cut it off, and why Assange’s story remains central to freedom of information. Then we go deep on the broken state of film distribution, why legacy media and streamers will not touch the...

Matt Hill joins us to discuss Start9, StartOS 0.4.0, and building a fully MIT FOSS stack for freedom computing. We chat bitcoin as the first killer app for self hosting, why AI agents are accelerating the need, and the privacy trap of “local” AI tools that still send your files to cloud servers. We go deep on StartOS 0.4.0: easier app packaging, more reliable self hosting, Tor, VPN, Start Tunnel, clearnet tradeoffs, and replacing big tech with open source services at home. We wrap with Server On...

UTXO The Webmaster joins to discuss his new android nostr client Wisp, spark wallet integration, encrypted nsec seed backups, and his controversial "Send Money" normie mode that denominates zaps in dollars. We get into follower count philosophy, what actually counts as a user on an open protocol, and why half of bitcoin twitter still hates nostr. Then we go deep on AI: his local rig running Qwen 3.6, on device spam filtering with nspam, whether Claude is subsidizing us into oblivion, and what ha...

Craig Raw, creator of Sparrow Wallet, joins to discuss silent payments, a new bitcoin address system that eliminates address reuse, removes the gap limit, and aligns privacy with convenience. Craig walks us through the history of bitcoin address derivation from single key to hd wallets to bip 47, then explains how silent payments optimizes everything except scanning cost and how his new server implementation, Frigate, uses gpu acceleration to mitigate that. We discuss the path to adoption includ...

Justin, a prolific contributor to the Fedimint open source project, returns for a six month update. Fedimint is an open protocol providing easy to use, private, programmable, and offline bitcoin payments using bitcoin powered federated chaumian ecash. Justin on Nostr: https://primal.net/p/nprofile1qqspg8fq209jj56663d2n6r9ehkyjffy7rkqqejfdwvtwzva426avkqxtxxuv Fedimint Website: https://fedimint.org/ Fedimint on X: https://x.com/fedimint The Ecash App: https://ecash.love/ Fedimint Observer: https:...

Matt Ahlborg, founder of PPQ.ai, rejoins the show for an update on the rapidly evolving AI landscape. PayPerQ is a bitcoin enabled ai platform that enables users to easily use all of the top ai tools without an account. Users pay per use with bitcoin and can switch the models they use on the fly without needing to provide an email address, phone number, or billing address. We discuss the rise of lean teams supercharged by AI tools, the subscription vs. pay-per-token model debate, and why massive...

Evgeny is the founder of SimpleX Chat, a private and secure comms protocol that has a radically different approach to the concept of user identity. We discuss how SimpleX's unique transport network assigns addresses to connections instead of endpoints, why MLS is flawed, the upcoming scalable channels feature to compete with Telegram, and how the network plans to sustain itself through a model where large channels fund infrastructure. No phone numbers. Private and secure. Open and scalable. Per...

Lea is the cofounder of Vexl, a mobile app enabling convenient p2p no kyc bitcoin trading. We discuss Vexl's unique reputation model based on real-world social graphs, how they minimize fraud without requiring identity verification, the challenges of Apple App Store censorship, the launch of a Freedom Tech alternative app store in the EU, Vexl Club for Bitcoin meetup communities, the origin of the name "Vexl" from Czech black market currency exchangers during the Soviet era, and the importance o...

Scott, cofounder of SideSwap, joins the show to talk about what his team has been quietly building in the Liquid ecosystem. We cover SideSwap's atomic swap markets, their peg-in/peg-out service, and how partners like Aqua Wallet are plugging into their infrastructure. Scott breaks down the new Liquid Connect feature, their first Simplicity based binary outcome contracts on Swaption, and the roadmap toward Bitcoin native prediction markets on Liquid. We also get into Liquid's privacy advantages o...

FIPS is an open source mesh networking project that enables devices to connect directly to each other without relying on any central servers or infrastructure. Today's internet depends on companies and governments that can monitor, censor, or shut down communication at will. FIPS solves this by giving every node a cryptographic identity and encrypting all traffic automatically, so no one in the middle can see or block what you're doing. Nodes discover each other and route messages through the me...

Routstr is an open marketplace for ai compute, powered by nostr and bitcoin. Routstr: https://routstr.com Chat app: https://chat.routstr.com Openclaw setup: https://routstr.com/openclaw Run a Routstr node and earn sats: https://github.com/Routstr/routstr-core Github: https://github.com/Routstr Routstr on nostr: https://primal.net/p/npub130mznv74rxs032peqym6g3wqavh472623mt3z5w73xq9r6qqdufs7ql29s Evan on nostr: https://primal.net/p/npub1u37h8rhgm9f95d90lpk2afw8h4t75kf6w8vmga2zz9jsx3atzpuqlmw8vy ...

Justin Moon leads the open source ai initiative at the Human Rights Foundation. Justin on Nostr: https://primal.net/justinmoon Human Rights Foundation: https://hrf.org/program/ai-for-individual-rights/ Easy Open Claw Deployment: https://clawi.ai/ EPISODE: 191 BLOCK: 936962 PRICE: 1473 sats per dollar (00:01:35) Justin Moon and early show memories (00:03:52) OpenClaw (00:04:16) Agents change how we use computers (00:07:07) OpenClaws light bulb moment (00:09:25) Agents as UX glue for Freedo...

Alex Gleason was one of the main architects behind Donald Trump's Truth Social. Now he focuses on the intersection of nostr, ai, and bitcoin. We explore personal open source AI assistants, such as OpenClaw, and the wider implications of the tech on society. Alex on Nostr: https://primal.net/p/nprofile1qqsqgc0uhmxycvm5gwvn944c7yfxnnxm0nyh8tt62zhrvtd3xkj8fhggpt7fy Clawstr: https://clawstr.com/ Soapbox Tools: https://soapbox.pub/tools My bot's nostr account: https://primal.net/p/nprofile1qqsfzaahg...

Carel van Wyk is the founder and CEO of MoneyBadger. MoneyBadger enables easy bitcoin payments at 650 thousand stores in South Africa. MoneyBadger on Nostr: https://primal.net/p/nprofile1qqsz85k206vm3vqdmlvcy9l4kyfqchlnf4hnctasxufa3ph0ck9decgpk49rf MoneyBadger on X: https://x.com/MoneyBadgerPay Wesbite: https://www.moneybadger.co.za/ EPISODE: 189 BLOCK: 933542 PRICE: 1112 sats per dollar (00:03:26) What is Money Badger? Mission and merchant focus (00:05:13) Paying anywhere in South Africa (...

Matt Corallo has been a bitcoin developer for nearly fifteen years. We discuss his views on the recent bitcoin core bug, the proposed us clarity act, and the risks/mitigations of quantum computing. Corallo on Nostr: https://primal.net/mattcorallo Corallo on X: https://x.com/TheBlueMatt Save our Wallets: https://SaveOurWallets.org Ten31 Quantum Report: https://www.ten31.xyz/insights/quantum-computing-bitcoin-security EPISODE: 188 BLOCK: 932276 PRICE: 1030 sats per dollar (00:03:37) Bitcoin Co...

Anjan Sundaram is an independent journalist, author, and founder of the Stringer Foundation with a mission to expand global independent journalism. We discuss his work and how open protocols, such as bitcoin and nostr, empower journalists. Anjan on Nostr: https://primal.net/anjansun Anjan on X: https://x.com/anjansun Stringer Foundation on X: https://stringerjournalism.org/ EPISODE: 187 BLOCK: 928149 PRICE: 1140 sats per dollar (00:03:09) Anjan’s path: from Yale and Goldman Sachs to war repor...