The Peter McCormack Show

Harald Rauter is an environmentalist and Bitcoiner. In this interview, we discuss how UN climate change action is predicated on socio-economic scenarios that no longer apply (i.e. a cooperative world with improving equality), and how Bitcoin's trustless market-based support for the energy transition could be the solution. - - - - The Paris Climate Accords in 2016 set the goal to limit global warmi...

Nima Tabatabai is co-founder of Optimize Infrastructure. In this interview, we discuss how battery technology for energy grids, solar's overwhelming economic case, energy sovereignty, and how combining batteries, Bitcoin and solar results in the most flexible energy assets possible. - - - - In 2010 solar power generated 34 terawatt hours (TWh) per year across the globe. By the end of 2021, this ha...

Nicholas Gregory is the CEO of Commerce Block, the company behind Mercury Wallet. In this interview, we discuss how they have used statechains to develop a virtual version of Opendime, the balance of trust and privacy on layer 2 protocols, and onboarding Lightning users. - - - - One of the most novel innovations to come out of the Bitcoin ecosystem in recent years has been Opendime. The aim was to...

Tibor Ballai is the co-founder and CTO of Fortris. In this interview, we discuss the challenges of running a business on Bitcoin, how Fortis enables businesses to use Bitcoin as an operational currency, and why this will be the next step in the adoption cycle. - - - - It is one thing for an individual to move towards converting to a Bitcoin standard, it's quite another for a company. Running a bus...

Logan Bolinger is a lawyer and writer of the Think Bitcoin newsletter. In this interview, we discuss how he became orange pilled after concluding trust in politics is an impossible dream. We talk about how Bitcoin can help fix the broken political system and the problems caused by fiat money. - - - - There are many paths to Bitcoin. Cypherpunks, anarcho-capitalists and libertarians have all been a...

Ryan MacLeod is a Bitcoiner working in the reactor research and safety programs at Canadian Nuclear Labs. In this interview, we discuss the importance and safety of nuclear energy, and how Ryan is trying to orange pill the nuclear industry by showing how Bitcoin aids the economic case. - - - - The growing consensus is that nuclear energy needs to play a critical part in providing society's energy...

Richard Murray is the co-founder and CEO of ORCA Computing. In this interview, we discuss the spooky and baffling effects of quantum mechanics, how ORCA is harnessing these effects to build quantum computers, and why success will be our generation's moonshot. - - - - The post-war period has seen an explosion in computing power. The principle underpinning modern digital computers was developed by A...

Pascal Gauthier is the CEO of Ledger. In this interview, we discuss how to build and grow a business in a bear market, making the business part of the mission, how nation-states are trying to steal Bitcoins, the vulnerability of software wallets to hacks at scale, and why freedom is not something that we should bargain for. - - - - Ledger is a French hardware wallet manufacturer. Founded in 2014,...

Ben Arc is a free open-source software advocate and founder of LNbits. In this interview, we discuss how LNbits helps to decentralize custodianship and how Bitcoin's widescale utility outweighs the environmental FUD. - - - - In April of this year, Arcane Research published the 2nd volume of its "The State of Lightning" report. It showed adoption of the payments system is growing rapidly. Transacti...

Peter Young is the managing director of the Free Cities Foundation. In this interview, we discuss the development of autonomous administrative areas around the world called 'free cities', where new types of governance can be offered to citizens outside the control of existing states. - - - - Paul Romer, former chief economist at the World Bank and a Nobel prize winner, proposed in 2009 the concept...

Eric Yakes is the author of 'The 7th Property'. In this interview, we discuss the possible Bitcoin banking systems that could emerge when Bitcoin reaches maturity. We consider the forms of banking that developed in the past, and the new forms of banking Bitcoin and the Lightning Network could engender. - - - - One of the major changes brought about by Bitcoin is that it encourages those who discov...

Obi Nwosu is a co-founder of Fedimint and a board member for Jack Dorsey's and Jay-Z's ₿trust. In this interview, we discuss how Fedimint builds upon various innovations to create community Bitcoin banks, with the aim of fully realising Bitcoin's potential to bank the unbanked. - - - - In 2018, Bitcoin Magazine asked Andreas Antonopoulos to reflect on 10 years of Bitcoin. He remarked that not ever...

The Rational Root is a Bitcoin on-chain & cycle analyst and in this interview, we discuss developing & using Bitcoin price models. We look in detail specifically at his Bitcoin Spiral Models, Bitcoin hodl price models and Bitcoin halving & cycle charts. - - - - Bitcoin is currently in a bear market that the vast majority failed to predict. In fact, late last year, there was a lot of talk about $10...

Lyn Alden is a macroeconomist and investment strategist. In this interview, we discuss her latest paper on the Lightning Network (LN). We focus on the importance of Bitcoin's base layer, how LN compares to Visa and Mastercard, and how LN is connecting the world in new and revolutionary ways. - - - - To understand the Lightning Network, you need to go back and understand money: what attributes does...

Max Hillebrand is an economist and open-source entrepreneur who runs Agora Towards Liberty. In this interview, we discuss the release of Wasabi Wallet 2.0 that he has been contributing to, the importance of CoinJoin, providing easy privacy for everyone, and why the personal risks of facilitating privacy are worth it. - - - - Every year increasing volumes of personal digital data are being leaked....

Ben de Waal is the VP of Engineering for Swan Bitcoin. In this interview, we discuss living on bitcoin, what it means to be a libertarian socialist, the issues with capitalism and why Bitcoin should be a home for those on the left and the right. - - - - The last year has been marked by a growing interest in Bitcoin from progressives. A number of high-profile liberal names have emerged from within...

Mark Goodwin is the director of print editorial at Bitcoin Magazine. In this interview, we discuss the US government's sanctions on Tornado Cash, the upcoming Ethereum merge, and why this is vitally important for the future of Bitcoin. - - - - On 24th August, the Ethereum Foundation's Protocol Support team announced the Ethereum merge is expected to take place between September 10th and September...

Anita Posch is a fellow Bitcoin podcaster, author, advocate, and educator. In this interview, we discuss her mission to educate Bitcoin educators in emerging countries, the challenges Africans face using Bitcoin, and the numerous innovative Bitcoin initiatives happening in Africa. - - - - Bitcoin has a tremendous capacity to help people, particularly those living in emerging economies, but a lot o...

Matthew Mežinskis is the creator of the Crypto Voices podcast and Porkopolis Economics website. In this interview, we discuss Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the refutation of justifications for the war on the basis of Russia's security needs and threats from Ukrainian Nazis. - - - - On the 24th February, Vladimir Putin ordered Russian troops to invade its neighbour Ukraine. It is the first major...

Maajid Nawaz is a UK-based counter-extremism activist, author and content producer. In this interview, we discuss his membership of a fundamentalist pan-Islam political group, imprisonment in Egypt, and returning to the UK to work on counter-extremism. We also discuss being forced to leave his position as a presenter on LBC. - - - - Maajid Nawaz experienced first-hand the rise of Islamic extremism...

Matthew Mežinskis is the creator of the Crypto Voices podcast and Porkopolis Economics website. In this interview, we discuss the definition of money, the importance of credit and fractional reserve banking, and how "not your keys, not your coins" equally applies to bank deposits. - - - - WBD528, "Everything You Know About the Economy is Wrong with Jeff Snider", was one of our most discussed shows...

Junseth is an OG Bitcoiner and the former co-host of Bitcoin Uncensored. In this interview, we discuss how the early days of Bitcoin mirror the issues we're seeing in the ecosystem today: over leverage, unsustainable returns, greed and excessive confidence that the party won't end. - - - - The contagion in the DeFi market over the past few months has seemed unprecedented. Major companies wiped out...

Paul Sztorc is an independent Bitcoin researcher. In this interview, we discuss drivechains, his 2015 proposal that's the focus of BiP 300 and 301. Drivechains facilitate sidechains on Bitcoin, providing a bridge to new coins. The aim is to enable developer creativity atop Bitcoin. - - - - In October 2014 Adam Back and other prominent Bitcoin developers introduced the concept of sidechains to Bitc...

Jason Maier is a teacher and progressive Bitcoiner. In this interview, we discuss his inspiration for writing a book setting out his case, as a progressive, for Bitcoin. The public narrative and FUD around Bitcoin are antithetical to progressives, yet, its utility is aligned with progressive ideals. - - - - Bitcoin should be a broad church. The original cypherpunks philosophy was predicated on ana...

There is a growing a powerful backlash against Bitcoin mining. In the past 2 months: New York's legislative assembly established a moratorium on mining based on PoW; Dick Durbin, the second highest ranked Democrat in the Senate, tweeted that Bitcoin mining uses "obscene amounts of energy"; the European Central Bank indicated that a ban on PoW is likely by 2025. The problem is that the growing move...