Stephan Livera Podcast

Latest Episodes:

SLP361 Rene Pickhardt - Pickhardt Payments & Zero Base Fee for Lightning Network Mar 26, 2022

Show notes

Rene Pickhardt, independent researcher and bitcoin/lightning educator rejoins me to talk about his new approach to massively improving lightning payments reliability, and the various trade offs:

What the current approach is
What Pickhardt payments are
Constraints and trade offs
Reliability and privacy trade offs
Are there conflicts with other proposals to improve lightning network?
Zero Base Fee

Rene links:

Twitter: @renepickhardt
Rene’s Patreon: Rene Pickhardt - Patreon.com
Support Rene here: https://donate.ln.rene-pickhardt.de/
Researchers website: https://ln.rene-pickhardt.de/

Prior episode:

SLP37 Rene Pickhardt - Bitcoin Lightning Education & Lightning Summit

Sponsors:

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SLP360 Giacomo Zucco Bitcoin - Can Bitcoin be both Hard Money & Dark Money? Mar 24, 2022

Show notes

Giacomo rejoins me on the show to talk about the need for Bitcoin to be both Hard Money and Dark Money. In this show we talk about:

What Dark Money means
Why “Just use Monero” is not a satisfactory answer
Use of atomic swap services or other
Can compliance bros kill Bitcoin?
Global KYC capture risk - would it create a minority chain soft fork?
Why NgU is still important

Links:

Twitter: @giacomozucco
Bitcoin Culture Talk @ Unconfiscatable 2022: Unconfiscatable 2022 - Giacomozucco.com
Lightning talk: Lightning Privacy - Lightning Hack Day, Istanbul 2022 - Giacomozucco.com

Sponsors:

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SLP359 Abubakar Nur Khalil - Bitcoin in Africa, Qala, B Trust, Recursive Capital Mar 23, 2022

Show notes

Have you wondered about the progress of Bitcoin in Africa? Abubakar Nur Khalil, Bitcoin Core contributor, on the board of BTrust and also of Recursive Capital joins me on the show to talk about:

Bitcoin core contribution and developer training/mentor process
Qala
Bitcoin in Africa & education
B Trust
Recursive Capital and investing in African Bitcoin companies

Links:

Abubakar’s Twitter: @ihate1999
B Trust: @btrustteam
Recursive Capital: @RcrsvCapital

Sponsors:

Stephan Livera links:

SLP358 Lili - Bitcoin Privacy for Beginners Mar 22, 2022

Show notes

Lili joins me to talk about her journey of learning about Bitcoin and using it privately. We chat about:

Trade offs of KYC vs Non-KYC coins
How to acquire non KYC coins
Staying private through the lifecycle of using Bitcoin
Bitcoin for donations
Canadian Trucker Bitcoin
Wasabi and ZkSnacks debacle thoughts

Links:

Twitter: @Marketsbylili

Sponsors:

Stephan Livera links:

SLP357 Lawrence Lepard The Burning House of Fiat Mar 21, 2022

Show notes

Lawrence Lepard (Investment Manager, Austrian Economist) ofEquity Management Associates joins me on the show to chat about living through the burning house of fiat money. We chat:

What’s changing in the world today and why so many took it for granted
The insecurity around property rights
Holding paper assets vs physical assets
Change in monetary order
Economic ignorance in the world today

Links:

Twitter: @LawrenceLepard
Site: Ema2.com

Sponsors:

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SLP356 Bitcoin: An Upgrade to 700 Year Old Accounting Tech Mar 19, 2022

Show notes

Darin Feinstein, Founder of Core Scientific (Bitcoin Mining) joins me on the show to talk about Bitcoin as an upgrade on some very old accounting technology and what it could mean for our future. We get into:

Learning about Bitcoin
Bitcoin mining narratives - FUD and facts
Bitcoin’s importance for liberty
Challenges to Bitcoin fungibility
Bitcoin for human rights
EU Proof of Work ban?
The path forward

Links:

Sponsors:

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SLP355 Julie Landrum - Payments Infrastructure for the Bitcoin Standard Mar 16, 2022

Show notes

Julie Landrum of OpenNode joins me to talk about what they’re building to help people onboard to Bitcoin & the lightning network as a payment standard. OpenNode first got its name as a merchant payment processor but we chat about how the company has grown and evolved over the years. We chat:

Bitcoin infrastructure services for merchants, bitcoin companies
Dealing with the cyclical nature of Bitcoin
Spend, HODL, earn?
Chargeback risk
Dealing with regulatory requirements
El Salvador adoption
International adoption

Links:

Twitter: @OpenNode
Twitter: @juliecity
Site: OpenNode.com

Previous episode:

SLP50 Rui Gomes & João Almeida of OpenNode – Helping merchants take Bitcoin Lightning Payments

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SLP354 Josef Tetek - Why is Bitcoin HODLing rational? Mar 13, 2022

Show notes

Josef Tetek of Trezor (and contributor at Bitcoin Magazine) joins me on the show to talk about:

The liberty movement in Europe
The connection between Austrian economics and bitcoin
Fractional and full reserve visions of bitcoin’s future
Why HODLing is rational
Nakamoto-Gresham’s law and how most get Gresham’s law wrong

Links:

Twitter: @SatsJoseph
Article: What is Nakamoto-Gresham’s Law and How does it pertain to Bitcoin?

Sponsors:

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SLP353 John Cantrell - Sensei: A new lightning node client based on BDK + LDK Mar 08, 2022

Show notes

John Cantrell of L2 Technology and Spiral BTC grantee rejoins me on the show to talk about his latest work in making Bitcoin and the lightning network more accessible for the many. Sensei can be thought of as an LND or c-lightning but for LDK. We chat:

John’s journey since cracking Alistair Milne’s 12 word seed
How sensei works
Trade offs
How the child node concept works
What does it look like if 7.7B+ people onboarded to the lightning network?

Links:

LN Thread
Twitter: @JohnCantrell97
Site: Sens e i

Prior episode:

SLP187 John Cantrell - Bruteforcing Bitcoin Seeds

Sponsors:

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SLP352 Matt Hill - EmbassyOS & Making Self Sovereignty Tech Cheaper Than The Alternatives Feb 25, 2022

Show notes

Matt Hill of Start9 Labs rejoins me on the show to talk about where the world is at, and a surprising argument that might actually be true. Sovereign Tech may be adopted, not merely because of privacy, but because of being lower cost.

We chat: