Stephan Livera Podcast

Andy Edstrom, Head of Managed Wealth at Onramp Bitcoin rejoins me to discuss the govt. debt levels, retirement planning on Bitcoin, price modeling, risks of leverage yield on Bitcoin and more! Summary In this episode, Andy Edstrom returns to discuss the evolution of Bitcoin since their last conversation, touching on price modeling, the risks of leverage, and the future of Bitcoin loans. They explo...

With growing institutional adoption of Bitcoin through custodians, investors will demand transparency through ‘Proof of Reserves’. Alexander Leishman, CEO & CTO, River joins me to discuss more of the institutional adoption of Bitcoin, Coinbase’s hesitation towards Proof of Reserves, US Govt. debt and more. Summary In this episode of the Stephan Livera podcast, host Stephan speaks with Alex Lei...

Secession may seem like a dirty word, but it has happened many times in history and it’s worth understanding the political and economic benefits it can yield. Ryan McMaken, Executive Editor and Economist at the Mises Institute joins me to discuss his book, Breaking Away.  Summary In this conversation, Stephan and Ryan McMaken discuss the topic of secession and its advantages. They explore the hist...

My friend Pierre Rochard (VP Research at Riot Platforms) rejoins me on the show to discuss some of his latest views. Summary In this conversation, Stephan and Pierre discuss the concept of long-term savings in Bitcoin and its product-market fit. Pierre introduces a metric for measuring long-term savings by looking at the age of UTXOs (unspent transaction outputs). They also explore the idea of reb...

Tankred Hase has experience working with various Bitcoin and Lightning companies such as Lightning Labs and Swan previously. He joins me to talk about Bitcoin, Lightning and Liquid. We discuss some of the real world challenges and trade offs that builders and developers face, as well as the likely path forward from here. Summary Tankred discusses the current state of Bitcoin, Lightning, and Liquid...

Philipp Bagus rejoins me to discuss his newest book, ‘Full Reserve Banking versus The Real Bills Doctrine’. This is his response to Juan Ramón Rallo, and in it we discuss: 🔸 The currency school and the banking school 🔸The problem of ‘double availability’  🔸Why the creation of fiduciary media is a problem 🔸The correct categorization of goods and money 🔸Full Reserve in a Bitcoin world?  🔸Milei...

Bitcoin security, especially during the upcoming bull run, is extremely important. In this high powered hardware security panel episode featuring NVK, Craig Raw, Rearden, Salvatoshi, AddBTC, we discuss the key trade offs of bitcoin hardware security. 🔸What are the implications of Dark Skippy? 🔸What are some of the most common ways people lose their coins?  🔸Risks of USB in hardware wallets 🔸St...

Sahil Chaturvedi, Designer at Foundry joins me to share his experience of getting on zero fiat and fully embracing Bitcoin as a unit of account. We discuss:  🔸#GetOnZero fiat   🔸Tools required to crossover  🔸Tax implications 🔸Weathering volatility 🔸Using intermediaries to live on a Bitcoin Standard  Summary Sahil discusses the concept of 'Get On Zero' and the reasons behind it. The co...

Dark Skippy is a new attack that in theory, makes it much easier for a malicious person to steal your coins. Listen in to learn about some of the ins and outs here, as well as mitigation and the path forward for the industry from @utxoclub , @LLFOURN & @robin_linus .  Why air gapping is not the be all end all Dark Skippy in context with other attacks Security while signing transactions, and se...

Just like how English is the international language of business, Bitcoin’s lightning network is how various layers and apps and products will ‘talk’ to each other. Roy Sheinfeld, founder and CEO of Breez (@Breez_Tech) rejoins me to talk about updates in lightning and what’s new with Breez SDK.  We discuss the various layers and ways of interacting with Bitcoin and lightning, using Liquid (@Liquid_...

Thunder Funder is a new funding portal by Mike Jarmuz (CEO) and Rockstar Dev (CTO). This will be a new way to allow retail investors to participate in bitcoin company equity rounds. Muzz and I discuss the ins and outs of what this means, as well as what it could mean for bitcoin and open source companies.    Timestamps: (00:00) - Intro (00:55) - Overview of Lightning Ventures & Thunder Funder...

Joining me is Antoine (@darosior), to discuss the latest developments around Liana and the growing importance of inheritance planning. We also delve into The Great Consensus clean up, important bug fixes and disclosure of Bitcoin core vulnerabilities.  Timestamps: (00:00) - Intro (00:40) - The latest developments with Liana (02:16) - Inheritance planning with Liana (05:59) - What is The Great Cons...

Can you retire on Bitcoin savings? What do the numbers look like? Morgen Rochard, Founder and Lead Financial Planner of Origin Wealth Advisers joins me to explain:  The 4% rule and how to modify it Being conservative in your planning CPI inflation being hard to predict Do you rebalance?  Timestamps: (00:00) - Intro (01:03) - 4% rule, Bitcoin & FIRE (04:41) - HODLers vs TradFi allocation (12:34...

The global fertility crisis is on with many western and developed nations below replacement fertility. Joining me to discuss this problem is Daniel Hess (aka @MoreBirths on X).  Timestamps: (00:00) - Intro  (00:54) - How bad is the global fertility crisis? (04:50) - Implications of low birth rate for future generations (09:54) - Causes for declining global rate of fertility (11:53) - Marriages aff...

Even as bitcoiners, we can’t deny that there is demand for ‘stablecoins’ or some kind of stable value feature. Tony Klausing, bitcoin and lightning developer joins me to talk about Stable Channels. This approach to stable value is self custodial, P2P, and bitcoin-native. We talk about the benefits, trade offs and who this would be suitable for.  Timestamps: (00:00) - Intro  (00:51) - Tony’s backgr...

Aleksandar Svetski (@SvetskiWrites) rejoins me to talk about his newest book, The Bushido of Bitcoin. We get into a discussion about: Anti-egalitarianism Virtues Why Bitcoiners should ‘stop being plebs’ The ascend & descend of civilisations Imbibing warrior culture in Bitcoin The masses and the remnant Timestamps: (00:00) - Intro (00:41) - Who is ‘The Bushido of Bitcoin’ for? (11:13) - The rol...

Jörg Guido Hülsmann is a Senior Fellow of the Mises Institute, and he rejoins me to discuss his latest book on Abundance, Generosity and the State. Bitcoiners like to spell out a lot of the social and cultural problems in the world today, and Dr Hülsmann is one of the leading lights in showing how fiat currency and government intervention have caused negative outcomes.  We discuss the way gratuito...

Why are some bitcoin blocks empty? Orange Surf from the mempool.space team joins me to explain his recent research report on this topic. We discuss: Why do empty blocks happen?  Comparing empty block rates across mining pools Firmware and config differences Timestamps: (00:00) - Intro (00:44) - Orange Surf’s research report on empty blocks (02:02) - Block interval data sets  (06:25) - What is an e...

Art Finch is a South African-American Entrepreneur. Art has experience across South Asia and is interested in setting up Free Private Cities or Charter Cities. In this episode he shares his experiences in Bhutan and shares his theories on how Bitcoin and Free Private Cities can work together.  Timestamps: (00:00) - Intro (01:28) - Art’s background & his interest in building a Free Private City...

While many debate the pros and cons of Bitcoin ETFs, joining us for this episode is Jeff Yew, CEO of Monochrome, doing a directly held Bitcoin ETF in Australia. We chat about the fees, the custody, the ethos, being able to contribute bitcoin or redeem bitcoin, institutional adoption and Bitcoin in Australia.  Timestamps: (00:00) - Intro (00:53) - Monochrome’s role in bringing Bitcoin ETFs to Austr...

You might have seen my earlier episode with Erick Brimen, CEO of Prospera, here’s the CFO of Prospera discussing the ability to use Bitcoin as a unit of account. We discuss:  Life on Roatan Setting up a business Choose your own regulatory environment ZEDE law situation Bitcoin as unit of account Leaving Canada Timestamps: Links: https://prospera.hn/ https://stephanlivera.com/episode/464/   Sponsor...

Tiero of Ark Labs joins me on the show to discuss the latest with Ark. We get into:  How Ark has changed since initial proposal clARK - covenant-less ARK Trade offs to make clARK happen Which covenants would help vs what is ideal for Ark Ark on Liquid  Capital requirements and costs Fiatcoins Nostr Timestamps: (00:00) - Intro (01:37) - What is Ark? ELI5 version (05:42) - Tradeoffs of scaling payme...

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 Addressi...

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 ch...

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) - Wh...