Guy’s Take_105 – Did Epstein Hijack Bitcoin?
Did Jeffrey Epstein secretly hijack Bitcoin during the block size war? Was is all a covert operation by Jeffrey Epstein and shadowy government actors to permanently handicap Bitcoin?
The big blockers want you to think so. In this Take, I tear apart the narrative piece by piece – following the money, reading the emails, and exposing why this conspiracy exists in the first place, and what it says about the people still pushing it.
References from the episode
Joy Ito’s article on the block size debate is still up and worth reading if you want his actual stated position (Link: https://joi.ito.com/weblog/2016/02/22/my-view-on-the-.html)
The DOJ Epstein email dump is publicly available if you want to dig through it yourself – fair warning, it’s a lot. (Link: https://jmail.world/)
The full video version of this breakdown will be shared shortly on my YouTube. I combined all seven parts into one, so it’s way easier to watch straight through.
Check out our awesome sponsors!
HRF: The Human Rights Foundation is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that promotes and protects human rights globally, with a focus on closed societies. Subscribe to HRF’s Financial Freedom Newsletter today. (Link: https://mailchi.mp/hrf.org/financial-freedom-newsletter)
OFF: The Oslo Freedom Forum is a global human rights event by the Human Rights Foundation (HRF), uniting voices from activism, journalism, tech, and beyond. Through powerful stories and collaboration, OFF advances freedom and human potential worldwide. Join us next June. (Link: https://oslofreedomforum.com/)
Host Links
Guy on Nostr (Link: http://tinyurl.com/2xc96ney)
Guy on X (Link: https://twitter.com/theguyswann)
Guy on Instagram (Link: https://www.instagram.com/theguyswann)
Guy on TikTok (Link: https://www.tiktok.com/@theguyswann)
Guy on YouTube (Link: https://www.youtube.com/@theguyswann)
Bitcoin Audible on X (Link: https://twitter.com/BitcoinAudible)
The Guy Swann Network Broadcast Room on Keet (Link: https://tinyurl.com/3na6v839)
Read_935 – AI Will Eat Application Software
“Yes, AI is a big deal, but the conclusion that AI is going to kill the vertical and functional software business model simply makes no sense. The truth is that AI simply isn’t going to kill software companies. After all this panic has passed, we’ll see that AI is the best thing that ever happened to the software industry.”
~ Alex Immerman and Santiago Rodriguez
Ever wonder if AI is really going to wipe out software companies and leave us all jobless in a post-human economy? Listen in this episode where I read a A16Z article dismantling the doom and gloom, then rant on why AI amplifies human judgment, process power, and relative value – turning creative destruction into the ultimate boon for innovation. Could this be the take that flips your fears into excitement?
Check out the original article: AI Will Eat Application Software by Alex Immerman and Santiago Rodriguez (Link: https://www.a16z.news/p/good-news-ai-will-eat-application)
References from the episode
The article by Peter Steinberg on managing AI agents and process engineering, which sparked my thoughts on judgment and memory in AI. (Link: https://steipete.me/posts/just-talk-to-it)
Dig into my feed for those recent episodes on AI coding and vibe coding; they’re full of practical takes on agents and processes.
Host Links
Guy on Nostr (Link: http://tinyurl.com/2xc96ney)
Guy on X (Link: https://twitter.com/theguyswann)
Guy on Instagram (Link: https://www.instagram.com/theguyswann)
Guy on TikTok (Link: https://www.tiktok.com/@theguyswann)
Guy on YouTube (Link: https://www.youtube.com/@theguyswann)
Bitcoin Audible on X (Link: https://twitter.com/BitcoinAudible)
The Guy Swann Network Broadcast Room on Keet (Link: https://tinyurl.com/3na6v839)
Check out our awesome sponsors!
HRF: The Human Rights Foundation is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that promotes and protects human rights globally, with a focus on closed societies. Subscribe to HRF’s Financial Freedom Newsletter today. (Link: https://mailchi.mp/hrf.org/financial-freedom-newsletter)
OFF: The Oslo Freedom Forum is a global human rights event by the Human Rights Foundation (HRF), uniting voices from activism, journalism, tech, and beyond. Through powerful stories and collaboration, OFF advances freedom and human potential worldwide. Join us next June. (Link: https://oslofreedomforum.com/)
Chat_163 – Mining in Real Life with Bitcoin Mechanic & HODLTarantula [Plan-B El Salvador]
“When it comes to building in the approach, you have to be taking the approach as utilising the fundamental principles that we see in Bitcoin itself. So having a standard rule set that you apply to yourself every day with discipline and developing standard operating procedures that force us to hold ourselves accountable to higher standards. It’s a daily grind, like you have to be always doing preventative maintenance, inspections and things like that so that you can kind of foresee issues before they happen and keep this infrastructure going because it’s not just for self, this is bigger than us and it requires a great sacrifice sometimes to achieve greatness.”
~ HODLTarantula
While down at Plan B El Salvador, I managed to pull together a last-minute mining panel with two of the absolute best in the space. Bitcoin Mechanic from Ocean and the off-grid mining legend HODLTarantula join me to get into the weeds of physical infrastructure on the ground. We discuss the critical distinction between simply hashing and actually mining, and why that gap poses a massive centralization risk to the network.
From the importance of constructing your own block templates to the “wild horse” philosophy of scavenging energy sources, we cover what it really takes to be unstoppable. If you aren’t building the block, are you really a miner?
Check out our awesome sponsors!
HRF: The Human Rights Foundation is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that promotes and protects human rights globally, with a focus on closed societies. Subscribe to HRF’s Financial Freedom Newsletter today. (Link: https://mailchi.mp/hrf.org/financial-freedom-newsletter)
OFF: The Oslo Freedom Forum is a global human rights event by the Human Rights Foundation (HRF), uniting voices from activism, journalism, tech, and beyond. Through powerful stories and collaboration, OFF advances freedom and human potential worldwide. Join us next June. (Link: https://oslofreedomforum.com/)
Guest Links
HT on X (Link: https://twitter.com/HodlTarantula)
HT’s Website (Link: https://sovereignhybridcompute.com/)
Mechanic on X (Link: https://twitter.com/GrassFedBitcoin)
Ocean’s Website (Link: https://ocean.xyz/)
Host Links
Guy on Nostr (Link: http://tinyurl.com/2xc96ney)
Guy on X (Link: https://twitter.com/theguyswann)
Guy on Instagram (Link: https://www.instagram.com/theguyswann)
Guy on TikTok (Link: https://www.tiktok.com/@theguyswann)
Guy on YouTube (Link: https://www.youtube.com/@theguyswann)
Bitcoin Audible on X (Link: https://twitter.com/BitcoinAudible)
The Guy Swann Network Broadcast Room on Keet (Link: https://tinyurl.com/3na6v839)
Chat_162 – Plan-B El Salvador with Giacomo Zucco
“If people are not ready for Bitcoin, just go use USDT as long as you can before dollar hyperinflation. It’s like Noah’s Ark: it’s going to rain, we build the ark. We don’t have to force people on board. Just wait there, and when you feel ready to swim, come aboard.”
~ Giacomo Zucco
Earlier this year at the Plan B conference in El Salvador, I managed to pull Giacomo Zucco aside to take a pulse on the current state of the Bitcoin world.
In this Chat, we debate whether the classic four-year cycle is dead, or if we are simply stuck in the bargaining phase of grief where the world tries to fit old fiat models onto new money. We then discuss whether stablecoins constitute a necessary bridge – like methadone for a fiat junkie – or if they are just delaying the inevitable. Giacomo also breaks down his new Cypher Tank initiative and why he is funding the next generation of cypherpunk projects. At last, we pivot to the creeping dangers of the surveillance state and why KYC is fundamentally a regression to pre-civilization barter systems.
Check out our awesome sponsors!
HRF: The Human Rights Foundation is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that promotes and protects human rights globally, with a focus on closed societies. Subscribe to HRF’s Financial Freedom Newsletter today. (Link: https://mailchi.mp/hrf.org/financial-freedom-newsletter)
OFF: The Oslo Freedom Forum is a global human rights event by the Human Rights Foundation (HRF), uniting voices from activism, journalism, tech, and beyond. Through powerful stories and collaboration, OFF advances freedom and human potential worldwide. Join us next June. (Link: https://oslofreedomforum.com/)
Guest Links
Giacomo on X (Link: https://twitter.com/giacomozucco)
Giacomo’s Website (Link: https://www.giacomozucco.com/)
Plan B Network Website (Link: https://planb.network/)
Host Links
Guy on Nostr (Link: http://tinyurl.com/2xc96ney)
Guy on X (Link: https://twitter.com/theguyswann)
Guy on Instagram (Link: https://www.instagram.com/theguyswann)
Guy on TikTok (Link: https://www.tiktok.com/@theguyswann)
Guy on YouTube (Link: https://www.youtube.com/@theguyswann)
Bitcoin Audible on X (Link: https://twitter.com/BitcoinAudible)
The Guy Swann Network Broadcast Room on Keet (Link: https://tinyurl.com/3na6v839)
Roundtable_018 – Everything is Fake and Gay
I’m joined by Steve, Mechanic, and Jeff for yet another Roundtable episode, and honestly, the digital world is getting weirder by the minute. Are we even talking to real people online anymore, or just AI voice clones trying to steal our seed phrases?
We dive into the wild new wave of AI scams, the undeniable reality of the dead internet theory, and how AI coding tools might be the real reason Jack Dorsey just slashed Block’s workforce in half. Of course, we also get into the thick of the quiet civil war happening right now in Bitcoin over BIP 110. Is this soft fork a vital stand against spam and network bloat, or is it a rushed experiment that could cause more chaos than it cures? Plus, we celebrate the Lightning Network quietly hitting a billion dollars in monthly volume, laugh about bartenders unplugging point-of-sale systems to charge their vapes, and question if the entire legacy system is just completely broken.
When the timeline gets this absurd, how do we navigate the fiat madness without losing our minds?
Check out our awesome sponsors!
HRF: The Human Rights Foundation is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that promotes and protects human rights globally, with a focus on closed societies. Subscribe to HRF’s Financial Freedom Newsletter today. (Link: https://mailchi.mp/hrf.org/financial-freedom-newsletter)
OFF: The Oslo Freedom Forum is a global human rights event by the Human Rights Foundation (HRF), uniting voices from activism, journalism, tech, and beyond. Through powerful stories and collaboration, OFF advances freedom and human potential worldwide. Join us next June. (Link: https://oslofreedomforum.com/)
Guest Links
Steve Simple Nostr (Link: https://tinyurl.com/3s6a8yn8)
Steve Simple on X (Link: https://x.com/stevesimple)
Bitcoin Mechanic Nostr (Link: https://tinyurl.com/2tm827ut)
Bitcoin Mechanic on X (Link: https://x.com/GrassFedBitcoin)
Jeff Swann Nostr (Link: https://tinyurl.com/3sjc3bcp)
Jeff Swann on X (Link: https://x.com/agoristview)
Host Links
Guy on Nostr (Link: http://tinyurl.com/2xc96ney)
Guy on X (Link: https://twitter.com/theguyswann)
Guy on Instagram (Link: https://www.instagram.com/theguyswann)
Guy on TikTok (Link: https://www.tiktok.com/@theguyswann)
Guy on YouTube (Link: https://www.youtube.com/@theguyswann)
Bitcoin Audible on X (Link: https://twitter.com/BitcoinAudible)
The Guy Swann Network Broadcast Room on Keet (Link: https://tinyurl.com/3na6v839)
Read_934 – The Code Liberation
“The cypherpunk principle that ‘cypherpunks write code’ takes on revolutionary meaning when writing code no longer requires programming knowledge. Eric Hughes meant that political freedom comes through building systems without requesting permission, and now that building happens through natural language instruction to AI agents. You achieve sovereignty over computing through direct technical capability.
The code becomes yours in the most fundamental sense: modified by your specifications, compiled on your hardware, serving your purposes exclusively.”
~ Max Hillebrand
What if every piece of software you use could be shaped entirely to your will – no bloat, no telemetry, no features you never asked for? Max Hillebrand argues that AI hasn’t just changed who can code, it’s changed *what code even is*. Could the combination of open source and AI agents finally destroy the vendor lock-in model for good?
Check out the original article: The Code Liberation: How AI Makes Software Infinitely Customizable by Max Hillebrand (Link: https://towardsliberty.com/articles/naddr1qvzqqqr4gupzpdlddzcx9hntfgfw28749pwpu8sw6rj39rx6jw43rdq4pd276vhuqqgrjvesxyurwctp8p3nzefevyuny53hzf6)
References from the episode
Chat_160 – A Quiet Global Resistance: The episode with Max that kicked this whole conversation off – worth listening to before or after this one. (Link: https://fountain.fm/episode/db0Y8qZkrhZpjhj2vT0D)
Towards Liberty: Max’s blog and writing collection on Nostr – I’m well behind on his stuff and plan to dig back in myself. (Link: https://towardsliberty.com/articles)
Host Links
Guy on Nostr (Link: http://tinyurl.com/2xc96ney)
Guy on X (Link: https://twitter.com/theguyswann)
Guy on Instagram (Link: https://www.instagram.com/theguyswann)
Guy on TikTok (Link: https://www.tiktok.com/@theguyswann)
Guy on YouTube (Link: https://www.youtube.com/@theguyswann)
Bitcoin Audible on X (Link: https://twitter.com/BitcoinAudible)
The Guy Swann Network Broadcast Room on Keet (Link: https://tinyurl.com/3na6v839)
Check out our awesome sponsors!
HRF: The Human Rights Foundation is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that promotes and protects human rights globally, with a focus on closed societies. Subscribe to HRF’s Financial Freedom Newsletter today. (Link: https://mailchi.mp/hrf.org/financial-freedom-newsletter)
Guy’s Take_104 – The User Doesn’t Care About Your Mission
The biggest mistake Bitcoin and sovereignty-focused developers keep making is trying to sell people on why they care instead of building something people actually want to use. They don’t care about decentralization, sovereignty, or peer-to-peer – they care about things that work.
Looking at the user experience tells us just how far we still need to go. Why does logging into a free service feel like a hostage negotiation? Why are captchas filling every corner of the web when bots are better at solving them than humans? Is KYC and a credit card to every single service we want to login to really the “better experience” that the future holds for us? And why in 2026, sharing and syncing files between your own devices and among friends still migraine inducing? It’s time to work backward from the web we want to have, to find the tools that will get us there.
References from the episode
– Pear Drive GitHub repository (Link: https://github.com/peardrive)
– Pears, open-source P2P development stack by Holepunch (Link: https://pears.com/)
– Pubky, key-oriented web protocol for user-owned identity and data by Synonym (Link: https://pubky.app/)
– Wormhole, end-to-end encrypted file sharing tool via links (Link: https://wormhole.app/)
– RustDesk, open-source remote desktop software (Link: https://rustdesk.com/)
– Nostr, key-based identity protocol for global social networking and messaging (Link: https://nostr.org/)
– Breeze SDK with Statechains: Non-custodial Bitcoin scaling solution for onboarding Lightning payments without liquidity concerns (Link: https://breez.technology/sdk/)
– Dead Internet Theory: concept referenced regarding bot-dominated online interactions (Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Internet_theory)
– BitTorrent history: its peak traffic era (~2006–2007) and lessons on peer-to-peer adoption (Link: https://www.bittorrent.org/)
– The Cold Start Problem by Andrew Chen: a book on network effects and the atomic network concept (Link: https://www.amazon.com/Cold-Start-Problem-Andrew-Chen/dp/0062969749)
– Steve Jobs’ talk on starting from the user experience and working backward to the technology (Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZll3dJ2AjY)
Check out our awesome sponsors!
HRF: The Human Rights Foundation is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that promotes and protects human rights globally, with a focus on closed societies. Subscribe to HRF’s Financial Freedom Newsletter today. (Link: https://mailchi.mp/hrf.org/financial-freedom-newsletter)
OFF: The Oslo Freedom Forum is a global human rights event by the Human Rights Foundation (HRF), uniting voices from activism, journalism, tech, and beyond. Through powerful stories and collaboration, OFF advances freedom and human potential worldwide. Join us next June. (Link: https://oslofreedomforum.com/)
Read_933 – The Secret to Vibe Coding
“The people who figure that out first won’t just ship faster – they’ll build things that others can’t even spec, because the spec emerges last from a process that only exists in the doing of it.”
~ Jesse Posner
When your AI knows your goals better than you remember them in the moment, something fundamental has shifted. This episode explores Jesse Posner’s “The Secret to Vibe Coding” and the emerging art of human-AI partnership through the lens of real agentic workflows, the philosophy of naming what’s happening while it’s happening, and what it looks like when the spec emerges last from a process that only exists in the doing.
Check out the original article: The secret to vibe coding by Jesse Posner (Link: https://x.com/jesseposner/status/2025680970784137238)
References from the episode
The Code Liberation by Max Hillebrand: the piece I mentioned as a possible follow-up Read episode – more philosophical take on the same ideas, keep an eye out for that one (Link: https://primal.net/maxhillebrand/930187aa8c1e9a92)
Host Links
Guy on Nostr (Link: http://tinyurl.com/2xc96ney)
Guy on X (Link: https://twitter.com/theguyswann)
Guy on Instagram (Link: https://www.instagram.com/theguyswann)
Guy on TikTok (Link: https://www.tiktok.com/@theguyswann)
Guy on YouTube (Link: https://www.youtube.com/@theguyswann)
Bitcoin Audible on X (Link: https://twitter.com/BitcoinAudible)
The Guy Swann Network Broadcast Room on Keet (Link: https://tinyurl.com/3na6v839)
Check out our awesome sponsors!
HRF: The Human Rights Foundation is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that promotes and protects human rights globally, with a focus on closed societies. Subscribe to HRF’s Financial Freedom Newsletter today. (Link: https://mailchi.mp/hrf.org/financial-freedom-newsletter)
OFF: The Oslo Freedom Forum is a global human rights event by the Human Rights Foundation (HRF), uniting voices from activism, journalism, tech, and beyond. Through powerful stories and collaboration, OFF advances freedom and human potential worldwide. Join us next June. (Link: https://oslofreedomforum.com/)
Chat_161 – Bitcoin is Tangible with Cade Peterson
“That’s the main reason I like doing this Bitcoin stuff so much, because it’s connected to the real world. It’s proof of work. Like, I can’t sit on my computer and come up with a more logical code base or a different way to attack and get more Bitcoin. I’ve got to actually go out there and create something, some physical thing. And if I don’t do that, it doesn’t work, right? So it is proof of work at the very most fundamental level. And I love it.”
~ Cade Peterson
Bitcoin is often dismissed as magic internet money, but what happens when you harness that digital energy to physically heat your world?
In this episode, I sit down with Cade Peterson to explore the inner workings of mining bitcoin for heat. We discuss his journey from Air Force mechanic to turning a local bank and a concrete plant into Bitcoin-heated fortresses. Cade explains the fascinating economics of heating systems that pay you back and why the tax man might actually be on your side here. We also dig into the philosophy of “boots and hammers” and why getting your hands dirty is the ultimate form of sovereignty. Is it time to stop over-thinking the thermodynamics and just build something? Let’s find out.
Check out our awesome sponsors!
HRF: The Human Rights Foundation is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that promotes and protects human rights globally, with a focus on closed societies. Subscribe to HRF’s Financial Freedom Newsletter today. (Link: https://mailchi.mp/hrf.org/financial-freedom-newsletter)
OFF: The Oslo Freedom Forum is a global human rights event by the Human Rights Foundation (HRF), uniting voices from activism, journalism, tech, and beyond. Through powerful stories and collaboration, OFF advances freedom and human potential worldwide. Join us next June. (Link: https://oslofreedomforum.com/)
Guest Links
Cade on X (Link: https://x.com/SoftwarmLLC)
Cade’s Website (Link: https://miningheater.com/)
Cade’s article The Significance of Micro-Infrastructure with Bitcoin Mining (Link: https://x.com/SoftwarmLLC/status/1863337651228823955)
Host Links
Guy on Nostr (Link: http://tinyurl.com/2xc96ney)
Guy on X (Link: https://twitter.com/theguyswann)
Guy on Instagram (Link: https://www.instagram.com/theguyswann)
Guy on TikTok (Link: https://www.tiktok.com/@theguyswann)
Guy on YouTube (Link: https://www.youtube.com/@theguyswann)
Bitcoin Audible on X (Link: https://twitter.com/BitcoinAudible)
The Guy Swann Network Broadcast Room on Keet (Link: https://tinyurl.com/3na6v839)
Read_932 – The World Order Has Broken Down
“German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said, ‘The world order as it has stood for decades no longer exists’, and that we are in a period of ‘great power politics.'”
“He made clear that freedom ‘is no longer a given’ in this new era. French President Emmanuel Macron echoed Merz’s assessment and said that Europe’s old security structures tied to the previous world order don’t exist and that Europe must prepare for war.”
“U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that we are in a ‘new geopolitics era’ because the ‘old world’ is gone.”
~ Ray Dalio
The world order is officially dead – Germany, France, and the US all said so at the Munich Security Conference. Ray Dalio’s chapter on the big cycle of external order and disorder lays out exactly how empires collapse and wars begin. But did Dalio miss the most important piece? What if the debt cycle he describes isn’t just a pattern – what if it’s a symptom of a fundamentally broken monetary system? And what happens when you drop Bitcoin into the middle of a world gearing up for conflict?
Check out the original article: The World Order Has Broken Down (Link: https://x.com/raydalio/status/2022788750388998543)
References from the episode
Ray Dalio’s book Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail – I read all of Chapter 6 in this episode and it’s absolutely worth reading the whole thing (Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Changing_World_Order)
Host Links
Guy on Nostr (Link: http://tinyurl.com/2xc96ney)
Guy on X (Link: https://twitter.com/theguyswann)
Guy on Instagram (Link: https://www.instagram.com/theguyswann)
Guy on TikTok (Link: https://www.tiktok.com/@theguyswann)
Guy on YouTube (Link: https://www.youtube.com/@theguyswann)
Bitcoin Audible on X (Link: https://twitter.com/BitcoinAudible)
The Guy Swann Network Broadcast Room on Keet (Link: https://tinyurl.com/3na6v839)
Check out our awesome sponsors!
HRF: The Human Rights Foundation is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that promotes and protects human rights globally, with a focus on closed societies. Subscribe to HRF’s Financial Freedom Newsletter today. (Link: https://mailchi.mp/hrf.org/financial-freedom-newsletter)
OFF: The Oslo Freedom Forum is a global human rights event by the Human Rights Foundation (HRF), uniting voices from activism, journalism, tech, and beyond. Through powerful stories and collaboration, OFF advances freedom and human potential worldwide. Join us next June. (Link: https://oslofreedomforum.com/)
Roundtable_017 – Did Epstein Hijack Bitcoin?
The Roundtable is back, and we are kicking off 2026 with some stories that I definitely didn’t have on my bingo card.
After catching up on Jeff’s frostbite scare and Steve getting the cops called on him for sleeping in a gym lobby, we dive headfirst into the Epstein files. The released documents have implicated some major names in the space, raising the uncomfortable question: did a compromised elite try to co-opt Bitcoin early on? We debate the “Andy” Back theories, the influence of the MIT Media Lab, and whether any of this actually threatens the protocol today. We also discuss the sudden departure of a core developer and get into a heated debate over BIP-110 and the true power of listening nodes.
Can a small but stubborn group of node runners actually block a soft fork, or are we heading toward a chaotic chain split this August? Equal parts absurd and sobering, this episode hits hard.
Check out our awesome sponsors!
HRF: The Human Rights Foundation is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that promotes and protects human rights globally, with a focus on closed societies. Subscribe to HRF’s Financial Freedom Newsletter today. (Link: https://mailchi.mp/hrf.org/financial-freedom-newsletter)
OFF: The Oslo Freedom Forum is a global human rights event by the Human Rights Foundation (HRF), uniting voices from activism, journalism, tech, and beyond. Through powerful stories and collaboration, OFF advances freedom and human potential worldwide. Join us next June. (Link: https://oslofreedomforum.com/)
Guest Links
Steve Simple Nostr (Link: https://tinyurl.com/3s6a8yn8)
Steve Simple on X (Link: https://x.com/stevesimple)
Bitcoin Mechanic Nostr (Link: https://tinyurl.com/2tm827ut)
Bitcoin Mechanic on X (Link: https://x.com/GrassFedBitcoin)
Jeff Swann Nostr (Link: https://tinyurl.com/3sjc3bcp)
Jeff Swann on X (Link: https://x.com/agoristview)
Host Links
Guy on Nostr (Link: http://tinyurl.com/2xc96ney)
Guy on X (Link: https://twitter.com/theguyswann)
Guy on Instagram (Link: https://www.instagram.com/theguyswann)
Guy on TikTok (Link: https://www.tiktok.com/@theguyswann)
Guy on YouTube (Link: https://www.youtube.com/@theguyswann)
Bitcoin Audible on X (Link: https://twitter.com/BitcoinAudible)
The Guy Swann Network Broadcast Room on Keet (Link: https://tinyurl.com/3na6v839)
Read_931 – When The Internet Shuts Off [FFR 104]
“Bitcoin is a lifeline. It is a money that cannot be shut down. Native money for the internet. But what happens when the internet gets shut off?”
Iran’s currency collapses 98%, the government kills thousands and cuts every wire connecting its people to the outside world. Uganda shuts down the internet the day before an election. And somehow, hundreds of thousands of people find a way to communicate anyway. What does it actually look like when Bitcoin’s promise meets the brutal reality of authoritarian control — and what happens when the very infrastructure it depends on disappears?
Check out the original article from the Financial Freedom Report: Financial Freedom Report #104 (Link: https://hrf.org/program/financial-freedom/financial-freedom-reports/)
References from the episode
Andreas Antonopoulos received the Finney Freedom Prize for the 2016–2020 era. Absolutely deserved. Look up the prize and the trophies Cryptografiti made — they’re gorgeous.
Bitchat is the peer-to-peer Bluetooth messaging app that hundreds of thousands of Ugandans downloaded when their internet got shut down. Worth knowing about.
FEDI went fully open source on January 3rd — Bitcoin payments and encrypted messaging built on the Fedimint protocol.
Zeus wallet added support for South Africa’s retail QR code standard via Money Badger — making Bitcoin spendable at everyday merchants from a self-custodial Lightning wallet.
Torreable is a new tool for publishing censorship-resistant websites as Tor onion services directly from your own computer.
Open Sats announced their 15th round of Bitcoin grants, including Braidpool and Dana Wallet.
Thor Halverson wrote an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal arguing against just swapping one authoritarian for another in Venezuela.
Anna Chekovic did an interview with Unchained about how Bitcoin sustained Navalny’s anti-corruption foundation after Russia kicked them out of the banking system.
Host Links
Guy on Nostr (Link: http://tinyurl.com/2xc96ney)
Guy on X (Link: https://twitter.com/theguyswann)
Guy on Instagram (Link: https://www.instagram.com/theguyswann)
Guy on TikTok (Link: https://www.tiktok.com/@theguyswann)
Guy on YouTube (Link: https://www.youtube.com/@theguyswann)
Bitcoin Audible on X (Link: https://twit…
