Stephan Livera Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Morgen Rochard: Holding Bitcoin Is Not a Financial Plan | SLP785 Oct 27, 2026

Show notes

Holding Bitcoin is not a financial plan. That is the starting point of Morgen Rochard's new book, Bitcoin Personal Finance, and of her return to the show. Bitcoin can fix the money, but it does not fix under-saving, spending habits or the money scripts people carry with them. Her book aims to help readers build a plan with Bitcoin as the core balance sheet asset rather than a token allocation.

Morgen is the founder of Origin Wealth Advisers and a financial planner who works with Bitcoin-holding clients. In her words, there are plenty of personal finance books and plenty of Bitcoin books, but none that combine the two to show people what to do once they own Bitcoin.

Stephan and Morgen discuss what Bitcoiners and the fiat world each get wrong, and matching assets to when the money is needed, using the example of a preschool fund put into Bitcoin near the top. They also cover how large a fiat emergency fund should be, and why forced selling tends to arrive with job losses and bear markets. She explains why most homes and renovations are consumption, why single rental properties often earn less than a REIT, and how leverage magnifies the damage when something goes wrong.

They also get into debt as a campfire that can become a wildfire, and the narrow case where a Bitcoin-backed loan makes sense. Morgen explains that borrowing to fund spending has sent some of her clients back to work. The conversation closes on spending-based retirement planning, tax planning versus tax preparation, charitable giving, trusts, and why she prefers educating children over restrictive trust rules.

Timestamps:

00:00 — Intro

00:21 — Why She Wrote Bitcoin Personal Finance

01:11 — Holding Bitcoin Isn't a Financial Plan

02:45 — What the Fiat World Gets Wrong

04:02 — Hot Trades vs Your Actual Goals

05:40 — Chasing Returns vs a 20% Savings Rate

08:23 — Match Assets to When You Need Them

11:31 — How Big a Fiat Emergency Fund?

15:52 — Is Your Home a Store of Value?

18:02 — Rentals vs REITs vs Bitcoin

19:31 — Leverage and Single-Property Risk

24:06 — Debt Is Like a Campfire

27:16 — When Bitcoin-Backed Loans Make Sense

30:05 — Spending-Based Retirement Planning

32:12 — Tax Planning Isn't Tax Preparation

35:09 — Trusts and Trusting Your Kids

36:58 — No One-Size-Fits-All Allocation

Links:

Morgen Rochard on X: https://x.com/MorgenRochard
Origin Wealth Advisers: https://www.originwa.com/
Bitcoin Personal Finance (book site): https://bitcoinpersonalfinancebook.com/
Bitcoin Personal Finance on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1394394055

Debt, Oil, AI and Bitcoin: A Gradual Print Until It Isn't | James Lavish SLP784 Oct 26, 2026

Show notes

James Lavish explains why he expects a gradual print to turn into a big one, what weak Treasury auctions signal, and what he got wrong about Bitcoin this cycle.

Timestamps

00:00 — Intro

00:48 — Markets: Warsh, Oil and a Narrow Rally

04:22 — How Much Debt Will AI Need?

08:41 — Outgrowing the Debt: A Polite Fiction

10:50 — Brent at $108, 10-Year at 5.13%

13:44 — Weak Auctions and Who Buys Treasuries

15:54 — Oil Shock: Supply, Not Demand

18:03 — If CoreWeave Trips: The Downside Case

19:56 — How the Fed and Treasury Would Respond

24:15 — The Base Case: Growth and Nominal Inflation

28:49 — Big Print or Gradual Print?

32:58 — Gradual Until All Bets Are Off

34:07 — Why Faith in the Dollar Breaks Slowly

38:11 — What James Got Wrong This Cycle

39:54 — Decentralization and Politics as Hurdles

41:59 — JPMorgan's Shift and Career Risk

43:45 — Why Bitcoin Over AI?

Plan Your Second Passport Before You Need It | Alex Recouso SLP783 Oct 21, 2026

Show notes

Official Podcast Episode: https://stephanlivera.com/783

Alex Recouso argues that Bitcoin solved capital mobility but not human mobility: you can move money across borders without permission, yet you still need permission to move yourself. His answer is that everyone should think about a second passport before they need one, because, as he puts it, you can't buy insurance once the house is on fire.

Alex is co-founder and CEO of CitizenX. He says he discovered the idea of alternative citizenship at 14, and that understanding Bitcoin in 2020 convinced him it was the missing piece. CitizenX sells citizenship by investment programs and, by his account, advises governments, including El Salvador, so he is not a neutral observer.

He splits buyers in two: citizenship programs suit people with high liquidity and low mobility, while residency and naturalization suit people with high mobility and less capital. They cover the main tiers, from cheaper Plan B passports to Caribbean programs, Turkey, El Salvador and Argentina's newly announced program, and why he prefers donation routes to government-approved real estate.

The downsides get airtime too. Alex expects EU pressure to cost Caribbean programs their visa-free access or make them unattractive. He argues European rules can change overnight, citing Italy's flat tax and Spain's closed golden visa. And naturalization through residency is cheaper but never guaranteed. They close on AI's limits as an advisor, rising versus established countries, and compounding in a low-tax place.

Timestamps

00:00 — Intro
00:43 — Bitcoin Solved Capital, Not Human, Mobility
02:04 — Selling Citizenship: Countries Competing
05:14 — Buy or Earn: Liquidity vs Mobility
06:57 — Why Program Prices Rise and Fall
08:55 — Weak Passports vs Plan B Buyers
11:32 — Donation vs Real Estate Routes
13:35 — Three Tiers: Plan B, Caribbean, Outliers
17:06 — Argentina's Program: Costs and Country Risk
20:09 — EU Pressure and Schengen Risk
23:12 — What Countries Gain or Risk
25:52 — Beyond Visa-Free: Settlement Rights
28:43 — HENRYs, Urgency, and Sequencing
31:14 — Insurance Before the House Is on Fire
33:06 — Naturalization Is Cheaper but Not Guaranteed
37:00 — Changed Rules in Portugal, Italy, Spain
41:07 — UAE, Singapore and Citizenship Limits
42:49 — CitizenX vs Traditional Firms
47:08 — Can AI Replace Citizenship Advisors?
49:02 — Rising Countries: High Risk, High Reward
51:34 — Lower Taxes and Compounding

Links:

https://x.com/recouso
https://x.com/CitizenX
https://citizenx.com/

Stephan Livera links:

Follow me on X: @stephanlivera
Subscribe to the podcast
Subscribe to Substack

Debanking and Bitcoin Business Accounts in the EU | Prashanth Chandrashekar SLP782 Oct 19, 2026

Show notes

Prashanth Chandrashekar argues that much of Europe's debanking comes down to how banks score transfers. Money arriving from a crypto exchange's account is treated as a higher-risk third-party payment, while a transfer between two accounts in your own name passes with far fewer flags. Bringin's answer is a named virtual IBAN for each customer, which he says lowers the risk of being debanked rather than removing it.

Prashanth, who is from India, started Bringin after moving to Estonia holding Bitcoin and finding he couldn't easily spend it. He now runs the company's consumer app and its new business accounts.

They cover MiCA's licensing reset, which by his figures left only about 30% of earlier firms licensed but lets the survivors passport across the EU; accounts closed without explanation under tipping-off rules; and how named IBANs differ from the deposit IBANs exchanges hand out. On the consumer wallet, built on Spark, he is direct about the trade-offs: operators are mostly centralized and can see payments, though they cannot move funds alone.

On Bringin for Business, he describes pilot users such as mining-rig sellers paying suppliers abroad, plus stablecoin support and accounting exports. The custody model differs from the consumer app: keys sit in a hosted Turnkey enclave with spending policies, Bringin holds an extra key in multi-director setups, seed export is discouraged, and ownership changes run through Bringin's backend. Third-party euro payments were promised within days of recording, and corporate cards are not yet available.

Disclosure: Stephan is a small investor in and advisor to Bringin.

Timestamps:

00:00 — Intro

00:37 — MiCA: Costly but Passportable

03:28 — Debanking: Why Banks Block Exchange Flows

07:04 — Named vIBANs vs Exchange Deposit IBANs

11:25 — Spark Self-Custody and Its Trust Trade-offs

13:03 — Why Banks Are Harder on Businesses

15:22 — Who Joined the Business Pilot

18:08 — Beyond Debanking: Accounting Headaches

20:31 — Business Keys in Turnkey Enclaves

24:53 — Key Rotation Runs Through Bringin's Backend

26:24 — Roadmap: Third-Party Payments, No Cards Yet

30:45 — Next Customers: Stablecoins and Agents

33:31 — Regulation Outlook: DAC8 and Data Risk

34:39 — AI Agents, MCP, and Payments

Links:

Stephan Livera links:

Seed Phrases vs Key Sharding: Multisig's UX Trade-offs | Setzeus SLP781 Oct 08, 2026

Show notes

Setzeus argues that 90% of people will never properly use seed phrases and hardware wallets, and that services like Privy and Turnkey, which split a key behind an email or phone login, are a good-enough floor for self-custody. Stephan pushes back on what that gives up: verifiability, portability across devices, and a degree of vendor lock-in.

Setzeus (Jesus Najera) runs SetDev, a Bitcoin L2 and metaprotocol engineering and security shop whose biggest client has been Stacks. He built BitScript and founded Cofund, a cross-chain multisig web app aimed at families, fiduciaries, and founders.

The conversation opens on the recent run of hacks, including the Coldcard incident, and his view that the cryptography is not broken but AI has made attacks on everything around it cheaper. They cover Justin Drake's "bunker mode" post, why Bitcoin builders get nerd-sniped by technology over product, why multisig adoption remains small, and whether ETFs are better than nothing for people who won't self-custody.

On Cofund itself, Setzeus explains spending policies built from signer sets, thresholds, and rules on Taproot script paths. He is plain about the limits: on Bitcoin only the signer set is enforced on-chain, spend caps rely on the client without covenants, rotating a signer means moving funds to a new set, and the free tier charges a 1% transaction fee.

Timestamps:

00:00 — Intro

00:37 — From SetDev's L2 Work to Multisig

03:20 — After the Coldcard Hack: Why Self-Custody?

07:56 — Justin Drake's Bunker Mode and ECDSA

10:13 — Are Bitcoiners Bad at Building Products?

15:59 — Seed Phrases vs Privy-Style Key Sharding

20:25 — Trade-offs: Verifiability and Lock-In

25:35 — Recommending Self-Custody After Hacks

30:40 — Families, Fiduciaries, and Founders

34:25 — Spending Policies via Taproot Script Paths

37:24 — Limit: Bitcoin Spend Caps Not On-Chain

39:59 — Key Rotation Means Moving Funds

41:11 — Cofund Pricing and Fees

42:03 — Thesis: Multisig Becomes Joint Accounts

Links:

Stephan Livera links:

Smarter Web's Capital Structure and MORE Preferred | Andrew Webley SLP780 Oct 05, 2026

Show notes

Andrew Webley walks through Smarter Web's capital structure—ordinary shares as growth equity, a repaid short convert, Coinbase credit, and MORE as the income preferred.

Webley is CEO of The Smarter Web Company (LSE: SWC), the UK's largest publicly traded Bitcoin treasury. He traces the path from Hargreaves Lansdown to listing on Aquis, then the LSE Main Market, while building toward roughly 2,747 BTC on the balance sheet.

The conversation covers ordinary shares versus preferred equity, why SWC repaid its short convert, how the Coinbase credit facility fits a "buy leverage when cheap" playbook, and the launch of MORE—an income preferred designed alongside SWC growth equity. Webley contrasts treasury companies with ETFs and spot Bitcoin, stressing Bitcoin-per-share growth, liquidity for institutions, and GBP denomination without US dividend withholding.

He also flags the downsides: treasury structures amplify Bitcoin volatility, management can mess up capital allocation, and in a drawdown there is no guarantee that equity, credit, or preferreds will be available.

Timestamps:

00:00 — Intro

00:25 — Hargreaves Lansdown to Smarter Web

02:09 — Saylor Pivot Was His Bitcoin Moment

04:00 — Listing the UK Treasury Play

08:44 — Clean Balance Sheet Structure

11:25 — Coinbase Credit at the Bottom

14:32 — Debt vs NAV Reporting

19:45 — Bitcoin-per-Share vs Total Return

21:32 — How Institutions Actually Buy

25:02 — Treasury Co vs ETF vs Bitcoin

28:12 — MORE Preferred Equity Explained

30:17 — Amplification Cap at 35%

33:11 — Sterling Preferred Advantage

37:49 — Downside Risks: Volatility and Execution

40:27 — Drawdowns and Uncertain Capital Access

Links:

https://x.com/asjwebley
https://x.com/smarterwebuk
https://www.smarterwebcompany.co.uk/

Stephan Livera links:

Lightning in x402 and Agent Payments | Ben Carman SLP779 Oct 03, 2026

Show notes

Bitcoiners built L402 for a Lightning-native web. Crypto built x402 for agents — and early volume is mostly stables. Ben Carman helped get Lightning into the x402 standard, and argues the pragmatic move is to meet that stack in the middle rather than wait for L402 alone.

Ben Carman of Spiral rejoin me to unpack HTTP 402 Payment Required, facilitators versus Coinbase Commerce, why agentic payments are still near zero today, and why AI agents may adopt Bitcoin faster than humans — because models already know sats, invoices, and QR codes.

Timestamps:

00:00 — Intro

00:50 — L402, x402, and MPP

01:09 — What HTTP 402 Actually Is

02:41 — Meet x402 in the Middle

03:44 — Facilitators and Coinbase Default

06:06 — x402 Standard vs Coinbase Commerce

07:26 — Stables Dominate Early Volume

08:03 — Agentic Payments Still Near Zero

08:55 — Agents Already Know Bitcoin

12:05 — Personal Agents vs B2B Agents

13:03 — Pay-Per-Query Agent Wallets

16:14 — Businesses on Bitcoin Are Easier

16:39 — AI Climb and Builder Craft

22:29 — Won't Fund OpenAI — Still Uses Them

25:38 — Cost Deflation = Human Freedom

28:57 — Best AI tools as of Oct 2

31:16 — Terminal Bench and Real Evals

32:25 — Bench Maxing vs Real Feel

34:59 — Four Years From ChatGPT

36:56 — Quantization Without the LARPs

39:51 — Mesh Alliance and Mesh LLM

42:37 — Goose, LDK, Think Big

Links:

https://x.com/benthecarman
https://x.com/spiral_xyz

Stephan Livera links:

Follow me on X: @stephanlivera
Subscribe to the podcast
Subscribe to Substack

Why Bitkey Ditched Seed Phrases | Clay Garrett SLP778 Oct 01, 2026

Show notes

Bitkey ditched seed phrases for a recovery-focused 2-of-3 design: an app key, hardware key, and Block server key that use phones, hardware, and cloud access to help people retain control of their funds.

Clay Garrett, Bitkey lead at Block, joins Stephan Livera to explain the design trade-offs: safety as security plus recoverability, cloud backup that needs your hardware to decrypt, and why Bitkey does not treat vendor lock-in as its ethos.

They dig into recovery paths, multi-vendor trade-offs, transfer-without-hardware limits, Recovery Contacts and inheritance, a working FROST prototype, what covenants could move on-chain, chain code delegation, and privacy-conscious Electrum options.

Timestamps:

00:00 — Intro

00:19 — Clay Garrett Joins — Bitkey at Block

00:56 — Bitkey V2 and the 2-of-3 Model

03:03 — Safety Means Access and Recoverability

04:11 — App+Hardware Spends Without Block

07:09 — Cloud Backup and Instant Phone Swap

09:27 — Lost Hardware and the 7-Day Delay

12:14 — Vendor Lock Is Temporary, Not Ethos

15:44 — Multi-Vendor After Coldcard

21:20 — Which Wallet Fits Your Threat Model?

26:49 — $5 Wrench and Transfer Without Hardware

30:04 — Recovery Contacts and Inheritance

36:06 — FROST Prototype Already in the Repo

38:04 — On-Chain Looks Like Single-Sig

39:34 — Covenants Could Move Policy On-Chain

42:09 — Chain Code Delegation — BIP 89

46:10 — Electrum, Mempool, and Custom Servers

52:08 — Industry After Coldcard Changed

55:21 — Wallet Plus Free-for-Life Co-Signing

Links:

https://x.com/clay_garrett
https://bitkey.world/

Stephan Livera links:

Bitcoin Savings vs Casino Exchanges | Julian Liniger SLP777 Sep 29, 2026

Show notes

Most crypto exchanges are built like casinos: they chase the next hot token, prediction market, or trading product. Relai is building a different category—a savings brand for people who want to accumulate Bitcoin, hold it in self-custody, and build wealth over the long run. Julian Liniger explains why serving patient savers requires a different product, message, and business model.

The conversation also explores why rising living costs are pushing Europeans to rethink ordinary savings, and why the temptation to get rich quickly can drive people toward momentum trading and leverage. Julian makes the case for a longer time horizon: Bitcoin savings is less about chasing the next move and more about consistently building a position through changing market conditions.

Supporting context includes Relai's MiCA compliance journey, where regulatory overhead is costly but can also raise the bar for smaller competitors. Julian also discusses the company's self-custody model and reports more than 100,000 users holding over 20,000 BTC in their own wallets—not under Relai management. The episode covers how a Bitcoin-only company can earn revenue through services around long-term ownership while keeping the savings proposition at the center.

Timestamps:

00:01 — Europe's Cost of Living Squeeze

03:11 — Why Europeans Still Don't Get Bitcoin

07:37 — High Time Preference & Get-Rich-Quick

10:31 — Bitcoin Needs Patience Again

10:54 — AI Hype vs Bitcoin as Savings

14:58 — Bitcoin Is Where You Keep Your Winnings

21:42 — Leverage, Treasury Cos & Risk

23:46 — Relai Private Loans in Europe

29:03 — MiCA: Overhead and Moat

33:11 — Bitcoin Savings vs Casino Exchanges

35:26 — 100k Users, 20k+ BTC Self-Custody

37:49 — Retail App vs Relai Private

40:00 — Self-Custody Phone Wallet

42:58 — Seven-Figure Raise in a Bear Market

45:12 — AI for Building and Securing Relai

50:00 — Living Costs Drive Bitcoin Search

Links:

https://x.com/julian_liniger
https://x.com/relai_app

Stephan Livera links:

Bitcoin PIPEs v2 | Misha Komarov SLP776 Sep 24, 2026

Show notes

Bitcoin soft-fork debates around CTV, CSFS, OP_CAT, and OP_VAULT keep stalling — and Misha Komarov of Allocinit argues you can emulate much of that covenant behavior with cryptography instead of changing consensus.

Misha joins Stephan to unpack Bitcoin PIPEs v2: a Witness Encryption design that locks a signing key under an NP statement so a valid zero-knowledge proof decrypts the key and produces an ordinary Schnorr spend. Bitcoin L1 only checks a normal signature.

They compare PIPEs v1 (Functional Encryption / richer post-covenants) with v2 (Witness Encryption / binary pre-covenants), ciphertext sizes from ~300 TB toward single-digit terabytes, DKG and 1-of-n setup assumptions, non-custodial vault and shared-pool use cases, contrasts with cosigner models like Sigbash, and how Allocinit’s Shielded Bitcoin design differs from Shielded CSV’s client-side validation approach — plus open cryptanalysis challenges and a path toward implementable code.

Timestamps:

00:00 — Intro: Misha & Bitcoin PIPEs v2

00:27 — Background: BitMessage to =nil;

01:31 — Soft-Fork Fatigue & Nice-to-Haves

03:24 — Emulate Opcodes Without Soft Forks

04:54 — Witness Encryption Unlocks Keys

06:01 — Witness Encryption vs Bitcoin Witness

09:00 — PIPEs v1 vs v2: FE to WE

11:39 — Ciphertext Size & Cost Trade-offs

15:28 — Vaults as the Unhappy Path

16:23 — PIPEs vs Sigbash Cosigner

18:05 — DKG Setup & 1-of-n Trust