Stephan Livera Podcast Stephan Livera
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- Technologies
Join Stephan as he interviews the sharpest economic and technical minds in Bitcoin & Austrian Economics to help you understand how money is changing and evolving. Leading names in the world of Bitcoin join the show to share their insights, whether they are developers, CEOs, economists, authors, analysts and more.
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Bitcoin Ossification Debate with Vijay Boyapati and Reardencode SLP583
The bitcoin ‘ossification’ debate continues with a discussion on the key considerations. What makes Bitcoin special? What improvements are necessary to retain sufficient decentralisation, if any?
Vijay Boyapati and Brandon Black (aka reardencode) rejoin me for a special episode to discuss:
What makes Bitcoin special?
Defining ‘ossification’
How many users is ‘enough’?
Unknown unknowns
Addressing centralising MEV concerns
Soft forks and hard forks
Economic nodes and who holds the power
Where to from here
Timestamps:
(00:00) - Intro
(01:54) - What makes Bitcoin Special? ft. Vijay
(09:37) - Verifiability & decentralisation of Bitcoin ft. Brandon
(14:31) - When do we stop ‘changing’ bitcoin?
(15:17) - Revisiting the blocksize wars & importance of self sovereignty
(20:45) - Libertarian principles of Bitcoin
(23:48) - ‘Sufficiently decentralised’ Bitcoin
(26:42) - Defining ‘Ossification’ of Bitcoin
(30:56) - Sponsors
(34:11) - Economic interests in upgrading Bitcoin nodes
(43:40) - Bitcoin is a Trojan horse
(47:15) - Can we rule out ‘Unknown unknowns'?
(50:49) - Concerns over centralising MEV
(1:00:17) - Whose chain is it anyway?
(1:05:14) - Resisting soft forks and hard forks
(1:16:49) - Closing Thoughts
Links:
X: @real_vijay
Bullish Case for Bitcoin: Swan.com/bullish
X: @reardencode
Prior episodes:
Rusty - Great Script Restoration
Brandon Black - Are Covenants necessary for Bitcoin
TXHASH Steven Roose
Matt Corallo and Steve Lee Great Consensus Cleanup
Sponsors:
Swan.com (code LIVERA)
CoinKite.com (code LIVERA)
Mempool.space
Stephan Livera links:
Follow me on X: @stephanlivera
Subscribe to the podcast
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NVK on Bitcoin Ossification and Changes SLP582
NVK of Coinkite rejoins me to talk about attitudes on Bitcoin development and consensus changes. We discuss how “ossification” is commonly thrown around as a term, but maybe there is a better term. “Extreme conservatism”? We talk:
What is ossification?
What about bug fixes?
What changes would NVK be interested in?
How many people will use Bitcoin?
What the market is focused on
It’s not your chain
Links:
X: @nvk
Bitcoinsecurity.guide
coinkite.com
Unleashed.chat
Timestamps:
(00:00) - Intro
(00:52) - Ossification and gardening
(06:06) - Where are the ossifiers?
(09:03) - Fixing bugs on the Bitcoin protocol
(17:13) - Assessing BIPs & change proposals
(23:53) - NVK on Bitcoin as SOV and/or MOE
(31:47) - Sponsors
(34:58) - “USD is the best shitcoin”
(37:32) - The fate of other blockchains
(45:41) - Putting Bitcoin on a pedestal?
(49:32) - Gresham’s Law in context of Bitcoin
(51:34) - Future path for Bitcoin
(57:27) - Outro
Sponsors:
Swan.com (code LIVERA)
CoinKite.com (code LIVERA)
Mempool.space
Stephan Livera links:
Follow me on X: @stephanlivera
Subscribe to the podcast
Subscribe to Substack -
Bitcoin Seoul 2024 Interviews with Saifedean, Jimmy Song, Laolu, Obi, glozow and Calvin SLP581
I recently spoke at Bitcoin Seoul 2024 and here are some interviews with some of the speakers:
Calvin Kim on utreexo
Gloria Zhao on Bitcoin Core and mempool
Laolu on Taproot Assets and covenants
Saifedean on Central Banking and tax cattle
Obi Nwosu on Fedi
Jimmy Song on Bitcoin in Korea
Timestamps:
(00:00) - Calvin Kim on importance of Bitcoin conferences
(01:51) - Simplifying Utreexo
(03:31) - What is Utreexod?
(04:51) - Will node providers support Utreexo?
(06:38) - Gloria Zhao on BIP431 (Truc)
(08:15) - Implications of Truc
(12:26) - What is mempool cluster?
(14:08) - P2P encryption on Bitcoin core V27.0
(15:22) - Upcoming developments on Bitcoin core
(18:04) - Sponsors(20:13) - Laolu (Roasbeef) on Taproot assets
(25:29) - LSP Challenges on issuing stablecoins
(28:21) - Views on covenants
(31:51) - Ensuring protocol safety while enabling Opcodes
(34:33) - Saifedean’s views on Bitcoin Seoul 2024
(34:44) - Central Bank behaving like a private organisation
(40:21) - ‘The Keynesian Voodoo’
(46:35) - All roads lead to Bitcoin
(48:26) - Sponsors
(50:45) - Latest developments at Fedi with Obi Nwosu
(52:23) - Role of the Fedimint Guardians
(54:40) - Fees on Fedi
(56:18) - Fedi’s Social backup and recovery model
(58:26) - Risks of getting rugged
(1:01:23) - Fedi is trust-reduced
(1:03:11) - Jimmy Song’s views on Bitcoin Seoul 2024
(1:04:18) - Views on Bitcoin’s Technical developments
(1:05:46) - Savings culture among Koreans & role of Bitcoin
(1:09:16) - Outro
Links:
X: x.com/saifedean
Saifedean episode: https://saifedean.com/podcast/222-central-banking-works
X: x.com/glozow
Bitcoin review club: https://bitcoincore.reviews/
BIP 431: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0431.mediawiki
X: x.com/obi
Fedi: https://www.fedi.xyz/
X: x.com/roasbeef
Lightning Labs: https://lightning.engineering/
X: https://x.com/kcalvinalvinn
Utreexod beta release: https://groups.google.com/g/bitcoindev/c/5GyV9af9lv4?pli=1
X: x.com/jimmysong
Sponsors:
Swan.com (code LIVERA)
CoinKite.com (code LIVERA)
Mempool.space
Nomadcapitalist.com/apply
Stephan Livera links:
Follow me on X: @stephanlivera
Subscribe to the podcast
Subscribe to Substack -
Bitcoin and MEV with Walt Smith SLP580
Walt Smith of cyber.fund joins me to discuss thoughts on MEV and where it may be going on Bitcoin.
We discuss:
Defining MEV
10 minute block time?
Does it centralise Bitcoin?
Suffering from success
The approach on shitcoins and spam
Timestamps:
(00:00) - Intro
(02:02) - Defining MEV
(06:02) - Replace-by-fee (RBF)
(11:01) - Concern regarding miner centralisation
(18:56) - Growth of private mempool flow & MEV potential?
(24:55) - Are mining pools transparent with fee payouts?
(27:01) - Expressivity on Bitcoin
(31:21) - Sponsors
(35:24) - Does the 10 minute block time mitigate MEV?
(40:27) - Is Bitcoin more than ‘money’?
(46:05) - Fake L2's on Bitcoin
(51:24) - Does MEV lead to miner centralisation?
(56:15) - Closing thoughts on MEV
Links:
X: @waltjsmith
X: @cyberFund_
Site: cyber.fund
Article: The Spectre of MEV on Bitcoin
Sponsors:
Swan.com (code LIVERA)
CoinKite.com (code LIVERA)
Mempool.space
Stephan Livera links:
Follow me on X: @stephanlivera
Subscribe to the podcast
Subscribe to Substack -
Silent Payments: A Bitcoin username? With Josibake and Ruben Somsen SLP579
Silent Payments is a new approach to improving privacy and useability of Bitcoin. Imagine not needing to manually create new addresses? Josibake and Ruben Somsen join me to discuss some of the ins and outs of Silent Payments. We discuss:
Silent Payments overview
Contrast with other techniques such as BIP47
Light client support
Stopping address re use
Base layer privacy discussion
Links:
X: @josibake
X: @SomsenRuben
BIP: Silent Payments
Tracking progress in Bitcoin Core/libsecp256k1
Informational website from sethforprivacy : Privacy-preserving static addresses for Bitcoin
Sponsors:
Swan.com (code LIVERA)
CoinKite.com (code LIVERA)
Mempool.space
Stephan Livera links:
Follow me on X: @stephanlivera
Subscribe to the podcast
Subscribe to Substack
Timestamps:
(00:00) - Intro
(01:01) - Overview of Silent Payments (SP)
(03:15) - History of the SP idea & contrast with other methods
Add more
(14:36) - Current status of SP development & adoption
(17:49) - Testing light clients for SP
(21:50) - The Silent Payment Experience
(26:31) - Light client support
(31:20) - What is a light client?
(38:05) - Sponsors
(41:16) - Spend Key & Scan Key
(42:37) - XPUB vs. Silent Payments
(44:42) - Reducing address re-use with SP
(49:29) - Labeling with Silent Payments
(53:14) - Ease of use and compatibility with Lightning
(57:03) - Overcoming the ‘silver bullet’ mindset
(01:10:50) - Composability with Silent Payments
(01:12:46) - Silent Payments summary
(01:14:06) - Closing Thoughts -
Bitaxe: The Open Source Bitcoin Miner with Skot - SLP578
Skot joins me to talk about his project to bring affordable, energy efficient, open source mining to home miners. We discuss:
The current state of open source in bitcoin mining
Bitaxe overview
Why do people do this?
Price and how to set one up
Mining pools
Decentralisation
Links:
X: @skot9000
Site: Bitaxe.org
Sponsors:
Swan.com (code LIVERA)
CoinKite.com (code LIVERA)
Mempool.space
Nomadcapitalist.com/apply
Stephan Livera links:
Follow me on X: @stephanlivera
Subscribe to the podcast
Subscribe to Substack