The Peter McCormack Show

Location: New York Date: Wednesday 8th December Project: lynalden.com Role: Macroeconomist These are strange times. The US Dollar's established role as the global reserve currency is under threat from competing powers, most notably China. However, at the same time, Bitcoin, a nascent and denigrated decentralized digital asset, has grown so rapidly it is now being seriously considered as a potentia...

Location: Remote Date: Thursday 23rd December Companies: Hypersheet Role: Co-Founder 2021 has been a year like no other in Bitcoin. The market has matured dramatically with increased institutional interest following the Michael Saylor and MicroStrategy playbook, El Salvador driving nation-state adoption and more sophisticated market instruments with the launch of two US-based Bitcoin futures ETFs....

Location: New York Date: Thursday 9th December Companies: Galaxy Digital; Hut 8 Mining Role: Head of Mining; CEO Satoshi's white paper introduced the principle of bitcoin mining as both an incentive for creating new blocks, as a means to distribute coins into circulation, and as a means of encouraging nodes to remain honest. Mining is, therefore, the bedrock for Bitcoin. Yet, it is poorly understo...

Location: New York Date: Sunday 5th December Project: Ethereum Role: Core Developer The Proof of Work (PoW) consensus protocol is under relentless attack. Earlier this month The House of Representatives held a hearing on digital assets. Rashida Tlaib dismissively questioned Proof of Work PoW, quoting erroneous Bitcoin transaction energy cost data. In response Stellar's CEO Denelle Dixon implicitly...

Location: Washington D.C. Date: Wednesday 1st December Project: Inter Miami Role: Professional Footballer Ever since Russell Okung's famous "Pay me in Bitcoin" tweet, the trend for professional athletes taking their salary in Bitcoin has been on the rise. Russell teamed up with Strike to take payment in Bitcoin. Earlier this year, Odell Beckham Jr revealed he would take his salary in Bitcoin thank...

Location: Washington D.C. Date: Saturday 4th December Project: American Economic Liberties Project & Coin Center Role: Director of Research & Research Director 2021 has been a monumental year for Bitcoin for many reasons. As a result, Bitcoin has matured in the minds of casual observers: it is now seriously viewed as a viable alternative to other forms of money. Whilst this is a validation for pro...

Location: Washington D.C. Date: Sunday 5th December Project: Bitcoin Today Coalition Role: Leadership & Advisory Board Studies have shown that education improves decision-making ability, that's not a great surprise. The real breakthrough in the latter part of the 20th century was the identification that educational efforts in adults are best directed at correcting for cognitive bias: our subconsci...

Location: Miami Date: Wednesday 1st December Organization: City of Miami Role: Mayor of Miami It is a common refrain that politics is in crisis. Polarization is producing deadlock. Election cycles mean big decisions are kicked down the road. A lack of term limits in congress results in a generation of out of touch leaders. But there is hope. A new cohort of energised and informed political leaders...

Location: Miami Date: Thursday 2nd December Company: Validus Power Corp Role: Bitcoin Strategist Credit is central to the modern capitalist system. This makes bonds the most important financial contract in the world, significantly more important than equities. So, when credit markets get sick, all other markets suffer. Bonds have performed well for nearly two generations. However, the market looks...

Location: Miami Date: Wednesday 1st December Role: Market Analyst Studying history helps us paint a detailed picture of where we stand today. But, our modern society is complex; it is shaped by the interplay between political, social, cultural, technological, and financial spheres. So, understanding our world requires gaining a knowledge of a range of histories. When one gains a full appreciation...

Location: Miami Date: Tuesday 30th November Company: Swan Bitcoin Role: Director of Marketing "History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes." This quote, credited to Mark Twain, is a good TD;LR for The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy by William Strauss and Neil Howe. In this seminal book, they theorize that American history can be subdivided into four recurring generational periods, whi...

Location: Miami Date: Tuesday 30th November Company: Castle Island Ventures Role: Partner What to some may have seemed wild conjecture last year, has now become real. A major public company and a nation state are now operating under a Bitcoin Standard. But, as the digital asset matures, so do the discussions and consideration of Bitcoin in terms of its role within society. With growing regulatory...

Location: Miami Date: Monday 29th November Company: Microstrategy Role: CEO In August 2020, MicroStrategy commenced with the bold defensive move to invest significant treasury assets in Bitcoin in response to inflationary pressures. Since then, MicroStrategy has strategically enhanced their holdings to become the largest corporate owner of Bitcoin and just last week announced an additional $414 mi...

Location: Remote Date: Sunday 28th November Project: tomerstrolight.medium.com Role: Writer The modern capitalist system is based on centralised and hierarchical structures of control. Bitcoin is a divergent innovation, structured to be decentralised. Progress is made through consensus, which forgoes the need to know or trust any of the parties involved. This can be an anathema to some people who...

Location: Remote Date: Thursday 25th November Project: Hypersheet Role: Co-Founder Comparisons between the 2017 & 2020/2021 bull markets are commonplace, and for a good reason. The 2016 halving kicked off a huge run and the first instance of wider retail getting involved in the Bitcoin market. 2020's halving was one catalyst for the current bull run. However, this time, the market participants are...

Location: Remote Date: Wednesday 25th November Project: Plebnet The benefits of the Lightning Network are clear for all to see. By taking transactions off-chain, you can settle almost instantly for a tiny fee while retaining better privacy than with an on-chain transaction. The Lightning Network is paramount to Bitcoin's scaling, and it is growing at a rapid pace, but while the Lightning Network i...

Location: Remote Date: Monday 22nd November Project: lynalden.com Role: Macroeconomist In the last month alone, Bitcoin has hit all-time high prices, Bitcoin on exchanges has hit multi-year lows, and El Salvador announced a $1 billion Bitcoin bond to fund the development of a Bitcoin city. At the same time, economic signals have started to flash red. Inflation is on the rise: it's hit 6.2% in the...

Location: London Date: Friday 19th November Project: Compass Mining Role: Founder & CEO Proof of Work is the bedrock of Bitcoin. It provides the network security but is not immune to attack. One attack vector is a collusion of miners who gain a significant amount of the hashrate could theoretically block transactions and reorganise the blockchain. This is known as a 51% attack. While this is known...

Location: Remotely Date: Tuesday 16th November Project: Human Rights Foundation & ShapeShift Role: Chief Strategy Officer & CEO, Founder The schism between Bitcoin maximalists, and those who champion altcoins, is a feature of the ecosystem. The arguments are well worn. However, the history of the debate has largely been regarded as toxic. Maximalists tend to believe that, at best, 'altcoins' are i...

Location: London Date: Tuesday 9th November Project: Bitcoin Magazine Role: Print Editor-In-Chief When I first visited El Salvador, towards the end of 2019, Michael Petersen was in the early stages of implementing his vision of a local bitcoin economy in the coastal village of El Zonte. What started as a small-scale experiment has become a transformative initiative and a key driver in the country'...

Location: Remotely Date: Thursday 11th November Project: anitaposch.com Role: Author, Podcaster, Educator It's easy to forget that those who have acquired Bitcoin are still early adopters, with the enthusiasm and courage to have found the appropriate resources needed to investigate this still nascent and mysterious creation. However, the key to the next wave of Bitcoin adoption, encompassing a wid...

Location: New York Date: Friday 29th October Project: loomered.com This year's Bitcoin 2021 conference was the biggest event in Bitcoin's history, with over 12,000 people coming together in Miami. I was there to host one of the most hotly anticipated events called 'Banking the Unbanked' which saw my friend Alex Gladstein interview Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. Jack didn't disappoint when he began by st...

Location: New York Date: Friday 29th October Project: Forward Party Role: Leader Nearly two-thirds of Americans want to vote for someone outside of the current two main parties. The current duopoly is limiting competition in the space for ideas, and worse, it's actively promoting the polarisation of society. Yet, voting for a third-party candidate isn't a choice most voters get, and even when they...

Location: Los Angeles Date: Sunday 17th October Company: Freelance Role: Writer The internet democratised the dissemination of information. From news to social discourse, anyone with access to the internet can broadcast their thoughts to the world. With the growth of the internet and social media, the news business model entirely shifted. No longer could newspapers rely on physical sales. Instead,...

Location: New York Date: Wednesday 27th October Company: Kraken & Bitcoin Magazine Role: Editor The role of Bitcoin maximalism is a hugely divisive topic. As a decentralised network, Bitcoin has no leaders or spokespeople to counter false information or fend off an attack. In the absence of leaders, bitcoiners from all over have become an important immune system for the network. They protect the p...