Bitcoin Rails | Isabel Foxen Duke

A particularly special episode—@domodata sits down with me for his first video interview ever—to recount the unique history of the BRC20 protocol. The first Bitcoin-native token standard ever created, BRC20 came into existence almost overnight and quickly emerged as a multibillion dollar asset class in 2024.This episode covers the influences leading up to the birth of $ORDI, the roles of different...

Even after Ordinals, there’s a lot of infrastructure needed to make the Bitcoin economy work: wallets, indexers, interoperability, and programmable metaprotocols. Today's guests – Oyl Dynamics co-founders Alec Taggart and Ray Pulver – are building one software suite to tackle all of these problems, including the tools for anyone to spin up their own metaprotocol! In today’s episode, we discussed:T...

Bitcoin culture wasn’t always about eating red meat. The desire for L2s, DeFi, and experimentation are part of Bitcoin’s earliest roots, and those are the areas that the Asymmetric Bitcoin DeFi Venture Fund is investing in. In our chat at ETH Denver, creators Dan Held and FarmerJoe took me through the history. In this conversation, we discuss: Being early to Bitcoin DeFi Why Dan and FJ ONLY buy in...

Even the most hardline BTC maxis are low-key starving for a way to earn yield on their BTC. CoreDao contributor Rich Rines says that Core Network provides a way for HODLers to do that – without needing to trust any bridge or custodian! In this conversation, we discuss How Core Network combines both Proof of Stake and Proof of Work Whether CoreDao is a Bitcoin “L1” or “L2” Why Core has proven so su...

In this extra-rich TWO HOUR episode of Bitcoin Rails, Ordinal Show host and $DOG token co-founder @LeonidasNFT told me about his journey between Bitcoin and Ethereum maximalism, and what led him to launch the most successful Rune on Bitcoin. Unlike Beezy, Leo believes $DOG is a shining example of how Runes can make it, and says we ought to collectively migrate from BRC-20. We discussed: - Leo’s ev...

With all the pain and cope in the Ordinals ecosystem lately, I needed *immediate* answers. That’s why I called up Beezy – former Galaxy researcher and walking Ordinals encyclopedia – to tell me why Ordinals needs a defibrillator to “kind of bring it back to life.”In this episode, we chat about: Why Runes are on life support How Runes were never optimized to be useful Why we should ditch Runes and...

The last time Bob was on, he was publicly known as a humble Twitter scholar for Bitcoin L2s. Today, he’s unmasked himself as the founder of ODIN.FUN – the new hottest Runes marketplace launched just last week. Today, we discussed: The journey that led him to build Odin The importance of optimizing for speed above everything The tech behind Odin and how it interacts with Bitcoin L1 The hypersonic p...

Today I stepped away from the heavy technical talk to chat with Rockstar Dev – core contributor to BTCPay Server who – to talk about lightning, Bitcoin history, and forging a career in the Bitcoin industry. Today, we covered: SegWit2X and the Bitcoin Blocksize wars The rise of the lightning network VC raising for Strike (a lightning company) vs token projects Why you shouldn’t shitcoin The importa...

Despite unlocking Ordinals and BRC20, the real pathway to Bitcoin DeFi remains a mystery. Chad Masterson – co-founder of OP_NET – believes an all-new Bitcoin L1 metaprotocol is needed for the job, which he says will “change Bitcoin without changing Bitcoin’s code.” Today, we covered: - Chad’s bitcoin price target this cycle - Why Chad isn’t bullish on Bitcoin L2s yet - How OP_NET improves on Ordin...

After learning about all sorts of new Bitcoin L2s, Lisa Neigut (aka Nifty). my very first podcast guest, has returned in person to lecture me about why Lightning Network is still the best! Lisa’s “lightning maximalism” is rooted in “payments maximalism.” If you purely intend to expand bitcoin’s utility as a payments tool, she argues that lighting – in conjunction with federated protocols and ecash...

I spend a lot of time talking about “bridging” to L2s on my podcast, so I recently spoke to Amino and Matt from Arch to talk about why it still isn’t time to stop building for Bitcoin DeFi right on Layer 1. Arch uses an entirely new VM inspired by Solana, but tailor-made to Bitcoin needs, including UTXOs and PSBTs. Arch can operate much like a traditional L2 that “bridges” funds for users, but can...

As a full-time researcher of Bitcoin Season 2, Bitcoin Layers co-founder Yah-Noosh (Janus) is becoming cynical: “It’s all a massive shitcoin casino.” Janus sat down with me for an hour in person to discuss how his research group compares and rates the swell of Bitcoin L2s now entering the fray, ranging from lightning, to rollups, to federated sidechains. As emerging BitVM and ZK-based layers fight...

I just had a mind-bending discussion with David Seroy - ecosystem lead at Alpen Labs (and fellow Bitcoin Season 2 podcast host) - about the genesis of zero-knowledge cryptography on Bitcoin. David began by unpacking the history of zero-knowledge proofs, what Ethereum has already done with them, and the potential they create for allowing “rollups” on Bitcoin - a promising solution for bringing scal...

It’s now been two years since Bitcoin’s first inscription, so I caught up with Trevor Owens – Host of The Ordinal Show – to update me on what’s going on in the world of Bitcoin NFTs. While discussing his recent Pizza Pets Ordinals airdrop, Trevor recapped how Ordinals have evolved over the past two years into an NFT market that can rival Ethereum’s. In Trevor’s view, the Bitcoin bull market hasn’t...

One of the most beloved educators of the "Bitcoin Renaissance," Bob and I chat about the possibilities - and limitations - of proposed L2 tech: —why the Lightning Network is not enough + proposed solutions for programmable Bitcoin—liquidity fragmention on Bitcoin metaprotocols + the need for interoperability—Bob & Isabel's shared history with ckBTC… and the underrated influence of ICP in the Bitco...

Lisa Neigut is the founder of Bitcoin++, co-founder of Base58, and a former Lightning Network engineer at Blockstream. In this inaugural episode of Bitcoin Rails, Lisa and I chat about the explosion of so-called "Bitcoin Layer 2s" spawning across the industry, including what defines an “L2”, and what makes some L2s better than others. We talked about some of the different types of L2s including E-...