Bitcoin Audible

"The cost of intelligence keeps falling toward the cost of electricity, and everyone will share in what that intelligence can do. Bitcoin captures the gains directly, while in dollar terms they are inflated away." ~ Early RIders In this episode I read and unpack “The Singularity Stack” by Early Riders, a framework that follows energy as it becomes compute, intelligence, agent work, and finally settles in money. I connect that thesis to Bitcoin, arguing that only a fixed-supply asset can actually capture the deflationary gains of AI-driven productivity instead of inflating them away. Along the...

In this breakdown of the Ledger supply chain hack, I walk through how a tiny hardware implant turned legitimate hardware wallets into seed-stealing spy devices. I cover who’s actually at risk, why buying from resellers is a ticking time bomb, and what self-custody conditions are now non‑negotiable for serious bitcoiners. This isn’t the end of self-custody but a painful step we have to take to make it robust enough for the world we’re heading into. Chapters (00:00:00) - The Great Hackening continues (00:02:05) - Resellers and attack surfaces (00:02:38) - Timeline...

I break down the biggest lie we've all deeply internalized about the economy: that prices are just supposed to go up. In a productive and advancing society, almost everything should actually be getting more affordable over time. Using a very simple analogy, I show exactly how the creation of new money quietly robs us of the prosperity our hard work should be delivering. Chapters (00:00:00) - Everything should get cheaper (00:01:06) - The apple economy (00:01:58) - Counterfeit money (00:02:20) - Lost productivity gains (00:02:43) - Printing as silent theft <...

We finally stopped being lazy and brought a guest onto the Roundtable. Max Hillebrand joins Steve, Jeff, and I to talk about the absolute madness happening in the freedom tech space right now. Max has been using AI agents to solve challenging computer science problems for White Noise and the Marmot protocol. We talk about the possibility that we are moving toward a future where the average user base for a custom piece of software is exactly one person. I share how I sent my AI agents after a spam caller company to track down the CEO's...

In this Take, I break down why the biggest AI labs, while deeply unprofitable sitting on massive future compute obligations, are racing toward trillion-dollar valuations. I explore how open-source competition, especially from China, is crushing their moat, and why that pushes them toward lobbying for fear-driven regulation, immunity, and government partnerships. Ultimately, I argue that the AI panic is about preserving a failing business model and building a centralized surveillance infrastructure, and why we shouldn’t be the ones paying their bill. Chapters (00:00:00) - Introduction (00:00:27) - OpenAI’s insane obligations (00:01:51) - Anth...

***"The dollar is going to continue to lose purchasing power. Bitcoin is going to continue to gain purchasing power. It's going to keep on happening over the rest of the century. We will at some point have enough people that have most of their wealth in bitcoin that they don't have anything else to spend and they will start to spend their bitcoin. And when they start to encounter more people like them on the other side of the transaction, they will no longer convert to some other currency on the merchant side for that transaction." ~ Cory...

In this Take episode, I break down the “Great Hackening” ripping through Bitcoin right now – from Coldcard’s catastrophic entropy bug to Liquid’s recent 4,000 BTC exploit, Lightning implementation issues, and a few major wallet update and data breaches. I also explain how AI has completely flipped the economics of attack and defense, why Bitcoin is the canary in the digital coal mine, and what practical steps you must take to protect your stack. This episode is a roadmap for surviving and ultimately benefiting from this brutal security stress test. Chapters (00:00:00) - The Great Hack...

In this third Coldcard Q&A, I tackle entropy, device trust, DIY signers, and why I’m leaning harder than ever on multi-sig. I walk through why understanding encryption must become a mandatory survival skill, rather than a niche hobby, if we want to resist a dystopian future. I also share where I moved my personal stack, explain how multisig actually saved me, and explore the impossible ethical nightmare of white-hat hackers trying to rescue compromised wallets. Chapters (00:00:00) - Introduction (00:00:22) - The future of Coinkite (00:02:28) - Refunds or going dark? ...

The roundtable is back, but we're missing a familiar face. Mechanic has officially stepped down from Ocean, so it’s just Jeff, Steve and I digging into the aftermath of BIP110, from why the soft fork failed to what Luke and Mechanic’s departure means for Ocean and Bitcoin Core’s influence. We debate whether the real existential risk is block-template centralization, how much BIP110 helped or hurt Knots and Ocean, and why some of us think the strategy overplayed its hand. We close with a wild proposal to pressure Coinbase into proving reserves using their wrapped BTC to...

In this episode I continue unpacking the Coldcard RNG disaster, wrestling with whether it was malicious or just shockingly incompetent design and attitude. I walk through how arrogance, licensing changes, and convoluted security theater may have let a fundamental failure sit unnoticed for years, possibly causing key collisions and bizarre “free Bitcoin” situations. I also warn about fake Sparrow and Wasabi mobile apps ruggedly stealing funds from people scrambling to move their funds, and set up a part three focused on lessons learned and best practices. Chapters (00:00:00) - Introduction (00:00:51) - Malice vs incompetence <...

In this Guy's Take, I walk through listener questions and comments on the Coldcard random number generation failure and what it really means for Bitcoin self-custody. We dig into why the RNG bug went unnoticed for years, the difference between source-available and truly open source hardware, and how dice rolls and strong passphrases change your threat model. I also share how I’m thinking about safer setups going forward. Chapters (00:00:00) - Why Coldcard Questions Remain (00:01:18) - Features vs Core Failure (00:03:19) - Speed Over Security Risk (00:04:54) - Car Without An En...

***"In the early days, the average user could probably use a Coldcard and know the amount of entropy required. The average Bitcoin user today, no clue. And so the times have changed, our message should have changed. And where I come down to is essentially what you said HODL, you should custody your bitcoin at the level that you are ready for. And that is a process. Day 1, don't shame someone for using an ETF. Applaud them for exposure and remind them that this isn't the end and as your experience, your knowledge, your position size increases, you may...

Thousands of careful Bitcoiners just got wiped out by a Coldcard entropy bug, and I use this episode to push back hard on the idea that self-custody is dead, and "don't trust, verify" failed us. I walk through the brutal history of centralized custodial failures, explain why "holding your own keys is still orders of magnitude safer, and extract three real lessons from this recent disaster. This is about keeping perspective, learning the right lessons from pain, and making Bitcoin self-custody stronger, not weaker. Chapters (00:00:00) - Intro (00:00:41) - Is self custody...

***"I think that self custody is not going to be dead. I think that there is going to have to be a group, a vanguard of people that do this and take it seriously. The revolution won't work without that. Everything under the spectrum is acceptable. But if you know what you're here for, you got to put pressure against those systems. And that is by taking the self-custody yourself. That's why we make tools for those people." ~ Lloyd Fournier*** Self-custody is not dead, but it is a ridiculously hard problem to solve. And recent...

In this episode, I unpack the claim that BIP-110’s failure proves corporate miners and suitcoiners now control Bitcoin. I walk through the real dynamics between miners and validating nodes, compare BIP-110 to the UASF, and explain why broad consensus is strictly required to change Bitcoin’s rules. Ultimately, BIP-110’s failure actually confirms Bitcoin’s defensive power structure rather than undermining it. Chapters (00:00:00) - Who Really Controls Bitcoin? (00:02:15) - Defining 'real' Bitcoin nodes (00:02:57) - Horse and carriage analogy (00:04:20) - Why did BIP-110 failed (00:04:42) - What UASF and SegW...

***"Today can you also use Coinbase to sell your coin? Yes. But can you guarantee that if Coinbase disappears, your funds will be with you? No. Because, it is, at the end of the day, their custody. Whereas in statechains, a really cool perspective is, if the server or the custodian, disappears, because of the design of the system, money comes back at you on L1. You can broadcast an exit or you can do nothing and the money comes back to you. So if something bad happens to us or to [the] server, then still [the] money is...

***"It's going faster than most people thought. We thought that these models would be useful, but not extremely useful, for a while. Now you look at this and you feel [that] if I'm not using this the entire day, I'm losing on something, I'm staying behind, I have to keep running this like crazy. But we haven't prepared for it. People are connecting all of their life to these cloud providers, you know: 'Hey, manage my life'. And then you're giving them everything you have. I don't think the industry had enough time to prepare for the right tools...

In this episode, Steve, Jeff, and I walk through the catastrophic Coldcard entropy failure, how a trusted hardware wallet ended up generating weak keys, and how attackers are now brute-forcing Bitcoin wallets in minutes. We dig into AI’s role in widening the attack surface, the dangers of source-available over true open source, and our own arrogance around hardware security. I share practical steps to get your coins off compromised devices, why multi-sig saved me this time, and how we can turn this gut punch into genuine anti-fragility for Bitcoin self-custody. Chapters (00:00:00) - Introduction ...

This is an emergency episode to warn everyone of the catastrophic Coldcard entropy bug that’s letting attackers regenerate users’ keys and drain wallets without device access. I walk through concrete, step‑by‑step instructions to move your coins to safety (including using Sparrow, Nunchuck, and even exchanges as a last resort), who’s most at risk across MK3, MK4, MK5, and Q devices, and what this means for hardware wallets, AI‑driven security research, and multi‑sig going forward. This is the worst hit to self custody in Bitcoin's history. All we can do is act as quic...

There is a massive miscommunication tearing Bitcoiners apart right now. Instead of arguing over specific code like BIP 110, I want to ask a much harder question in this solo take: Is it actually censorship to address spam? I'll explain why prioritizing financial transactions over JPEGs isn't authoritarianism, and why claiming it is destroys our ability to protect the network. We built a protocol for decentralized money, not unlimited file storage. Let's talk about what real censorship actually means. Chapters (00:00:00) - "Censorship" and Spam (00:01:41) - The analogy (00:02:52) - Free speech...