Read_509 – Fidelity: Addressing Persisting Bitcoin Criticisms [Ria Bhutoria]

“Bitcoin is a unique digital asset for an increasingly digital world that requires digging deeper than the surface level to understand its core properties and trade-offs.” – Ria Bhutoria
Fidelity writes another great piece this time addressing he persisting and common criticisms of Bitcoin that the new entrants to the ecosystem continue to falsely hold as major, valid concerns. Bitcoin is a complicated and nuanced technology. Unfortunately, this means baseless or clearly erroneous criticisms stick around for far longer than their validity would seem to warrant. So with another great post from Fidelity, let’s answer them yet again.
Fidelity Digital Assets
Addressing Persisting Bitcoin Criticisms:
https://www.fidelitydigitalassets.com/articles/addressing-bitcoin-criticisms
Follow Ria on social media:
https://twitter.com/riabhutoria
A huge thank you to our amazing sponsors:
SwanBitcoin – The #1 place to setup your automatic Bitcoin savings plan! (SwanBitcoin.com/guy)
BitBox – Minimal, user friendly, secure, Swiss made, open source, hardware wallet (guyswann.com/BitBox)
Today’s Bitcoin Resource:
Sphinx App, Chat & Lightning! Check them out at Sphinx.chat to get started on the encrypted chat and payments app run entirely over the Lightning network.
—
Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bitcoinaudible/message
Read_508 – Sovereignism Part 1 – Digital Creative Destruction [Robert Breedlove]

“To state it plainly: Bitcoin is a momentous monetary innovation enabling a new mode of non-nation-state human organization, a “purified” form of capitalism free of nation-state interference and deserving of its own neologism. Let us call the new mode of socioeconomic organization enabled by encrypted digital money sovereignism.” – Robert Breedlove
Today we start an amazing series by Breedlove based on the thesis proposed by the Sovereign Individual. Could the new dynamic brought about by the existence of Bitcoin, potentially destroy the economic cost/reward reality of centralized, violent nation states? And what does such a potentiality mean for the future?
Don’t miss today’s read from Swan Bitcoin blog, by Robert Breedlove:
Sovereignism Part 1 – Digital Creative Destruction
https://www.swanbitcoin.com/sovereignism-part-i-digital-creative-destruction/
A huge thank you to our amazing sponsors:
SwanBitcoin – The #1 place to setup your automatic Bitcoin savings plan! (SwanBitcoin.com/guy)
BitBox – Minimal, user friendly, secure, Swiss made, open source, hardware wallet (guyswann.com/BitBox)
—
Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bitcoinaudible/message
Read_507 – Trust, That we Need More of [Karo Zarogus]

“We can already observe some faint light at the end of the tunnel. Savings have been reintroduced into the hands of society. You can save money and the State is unable to influence your funds on the Bitcoin blockchain. Nobody can take your money away, and this creates economic stability that positively influences mental wellbeing. When you know that you have savings, and that you will be able to pay any and all unexpected expenses that might arise and that you have built the foundations of a prosperous future, things change.” – Karo
Paper money doesn’t merely have economic consequences, it has deep impact on the very nature of who we are. Today’s read from Bitcoin Magazine delves into what those consequences are. And despite losing a long Guy’s rant thanks to some failed software, I would point you to an older episode that had a very similar topic of discussion, Guy’s Take #36 – Walking Tall
Check out the original article and the other great stuff at Bitcoin Magazine below:
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/trust-that-we-need-more-of
A huge thank you to our amazing sponsors:
SwanBitcoin – The #1 place to setup your automatic Bitcoin savings plan! (SwanBitcoin.com/guy)
BitBox – Minimal, user friendly, secure, Swiss made, open source, hardware wallet (guyswann.com/BitBox)
—
Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bitcoinaudible/message
Read_506 – Pumping Iron [Arthur Hayes]

“40 years of this back and forth has resulted in almost $20 trillion in zero- or negative-yield government and corporate debt, the lowest interest rates in the last 5,000 years, and the most amount of global debt ever in human civilization.” – Arthur Hayes
Our macro situation is teeter between Financial Armageddon on the one hand, if governments and central banks let interest rates rise, and possible war and revolution on the other, if they hyperinflate their currencies to absolve them of their debts. Is there anything that can protect us from this terrible situation? How on earth do you build a portfolio in such an environment?
Today we read, Arthur Hayes’s amazing piece from the BitMex blog, “Pumping Iron”:
https://blog.bitmex.com/pumping-iron/
Don’t forget to read/listen to his other great piece mentioned “Choose Your Fiction”:
https://bitcoinaudible.com/?p=3907
A huge thank you to our amazing sponsors:
SwanBitcoin – The #1 place to setup your automatic Bitcoin savings plan! (SwanBitcoin.com/guy)
BitBox – Minimal, user friendly, secure, Swiss made, open source, hardware wallet (guyswann.com/BitBox)
—
Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bitcoinaudible/message
Read_505 – The Separation of Money & State [Knut Svanholm]

“As long as there are money printers, there can be no freedom of expression. Money is the tool we use to express value to each other. Whoever controls the money supply controls the world.” – Knut Svanholm
The world became vastly more free when we separated our religious morals and authority from the apparatus of the state. The separation of church and state is one of the most important developments for freedom in history. But the state retained an unjust, unequal level of control & limitation on the freedom of expression, by monopolizing the very tool we use to express value. Money.
Bitcoin is, The Separation of Money and State. Check out the full article at Bitcoin Magazine below:
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/bitcoin-and-the-separation-of-money-and-state
To dig deeper into the concept of rights and the Bitcoin system, check out Guy’s Take #32.
Rights, Incentives & the Bitcoin System:
https://bitcoinaudible.com/?p=4800
A huge thank you to our amazing sponsors:
SwanBitcoin – The #1 place to setup your automatic Bitcoin savings plan! (SwanBitcoin.com/guy)
BitBox – Minimal, user friendly, secure, Swiss made, open source, hardware wallet (guyswann.com/BitBox)
Much love to Bitcoin Magazine and the extraordinary LTBNetwork for the invaluable resource they provide to the Bitcoin ecosystem!
—
Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bitcoinaudible/message
Read_504 – SeeTee Shareholder Letter [Kjell Inge Røkke]

“We are not going to wait for the future – we want to join in building it as well! I encourage entrepreneurs to reach out to Seetee. The bigger the dream, the more we listen.”
Kjell Inge Røkke
Covering the recent, incredible announcement that the Norwegian energy giant, Aker has made a strong push into both building for & investing in the Bitcoin ecosystem, we read the SeeTee shareholder letter on their breakdown of their journey into Bitcoin, their thinking on its massive potential, & their vision for the future. Another phenomenal read not to be missed.
The SeeTee Shareholder Letter, check out the original below:
https://www.seetee.io/
A huge thank you to our amazing sponsors:
LVL.co – The first Free, no-fee exchange & Bitcoin banking services! (guyswann.com/lvl)
SwanBitcoin – The #1 place to setup your automatic Bitcoin savings plan! (SwanBitcoin.com/guy)
BitBox – Minimal, user friendly, secure, Swiss made, open source, hardware wallet (guyswann.com/BitBox)
—
Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bitcoinaudible/message
Read_503 – Bitcoin is Time [DerGigi]

“This problem is precisely why all previous attempts of digital cash required a centralized registry. You always had to trust someone to correctly identify the order of things. A centralized party was required to keep the time. Bitcoin solves this problem by re-inventing time itself. It says no to seconds and yes to blocks.”- DerGigi
DerGigi is back at it with a chapter from his upcoming book 21 Ways, all about the nature of Bitcoin not as new invention in money, or payments, or cryptography… but rather a new invention in the realm of time. Bitcoin doesn’t merely allow an ordering of events, it actually invents its own concept, of time.
Bitcoin is Time:
https://dergigi.com/2021/01/14/bitcoin-is-time/
Don’t forget to check out DerGigi’s other phenomenal work and support him at the link below:
https://dergigi.com/support/
POW is a Decentralized Clock:
https://bitcoinaudible.com/?p=4728
21 Lessons:
Listen on Audible
Today’s Bitcoin Resource:
Bo Bullshit Bitcoin
A huge thank you to our amazing sponsors:
LVL.co – The first Free, no-fee exchange & Bitcoin banking services! (guyswann.com/lvl)
SwanBitcoin – The #1 place to setup your automatic Bitcoin savings plan! (SwanBitcoin.com/guy)
BitBox – Minimal, user friendly, secure, Swiss made, open source, hardware wallet (guyswann.com/BitBox)
—
Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bitcoinaudible/message
Read_502 – LOT true or false? The Last Hurdle for Taproot [Aaron Van Wirdum]

“As a consensus system without central authority, Bitcoin protocol upgrades can be challenging. If one segment of the network upgrades to a new version of the protocol before another segment does, different nodes might enforce different rules, introducing the risk that the network fractures between them.” – Aaron Van Wirdum
Today’s read is from Aaron Van Wirdum at Bitcoin Magazine, an excellent writer who has so many brilliant breakdowns of the technical and historical elements of Bitcoin. Taproot is SO close, but there is a final debate, a final hurdle to tackle before we get to see it activated on the network, and that’s over how and when to turn on the switch.
LOT=true or LOT=false? This is the Last Hurdle Before Taproot Activation:
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/technical/lottrue-or-lotfalse-this-is-the-last-hurdle-before-taproot-activation
Check out the Bitcoin Audible Page for Aaron & his collection of amazing work:
https://bitcoinaudible.com/?page_id=5204
Today’s Bitcoin Resource:
mempool.space
A huge thank you to our amazing sponsors:
LVL.co – The first Free, no-fee exchange & Bitcoin banking services! (guyswann.com/lvl)
SwanBitcoin – The #1 place to setup your automatic Bitcoin savings plan! (SwanBitcoin.com/guy)
BitBox – Minimal, user friendly, secure, Swiss made, open source, hardware wallet (guyswann.com/BitBox)
Final thanks to Bitcoin Magazine and the LTBNetwork for being such an incredible source of signal to the Bitcoin ecosystem! letstalkbitcoin.com
—
Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bitcoinaudible/message
Read_501 – The Capital Strip Mine [Allen Farrington]

“The most egregious falsehood regarding economic health that is nonetheless widely believed is surely that we ought to measure it by the magnitude of goods and services consumed. This is dangerous nonsense.” – Allen Farrington
How is it that we found ourselves in such a disastrous and unstable financial situation across the entire country, and even the entire world? How has the economic system been overtaken by exploiters, over consumption, and waste while completely lost touch with sustainable, thoughtful production and value? Laying out the whole picture in today’s article, we have the audio version of Allen Farrington’s “The Capital Strip Mine.”
Check out the original article and drop some applause at the link below:
The Capital Strip Mine:
https://allenfarrington.medium.com/the-capital-strip-mine-ec627e9fe40a
Other articles mentioned in today’s Guy’s Take:
Bitcoin is the Great Definancialization:
https://bitcoinaudible.com/?p=5554
Today’s Bitcoin Resource:
https://bitcoinerjobs.co/
A huge thank you to our amazing sponsors:
SwanBitcoin – The #1 place to setup your automatic Bitcoin savings plan! (SwanBitcoin.com/guy)
BitBox – Minimal, user friendly, secure, Swiss made, open source, hardware wallet (guyswann.com/BitBox)
LVL.co – The first Free, no-fee exchange & Bitcoin banking services! (guyswann.com/lvl)
—
Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bitcoinaudible/message
Read_500 – Decentralization, Why Dumb Networks are Better [Andreas Antonopolous]

“The Internet’s protocol (transmission control protocol/Internet protocol, or TCP/IP) doesn’t offer “services.” It doesn’t make decisions about content. It doesn’t distinguish between photos and text, video and audio. It doesn’t have a list of approved applications. It doesn’t even distinguish between client and server, user and host, or individual versus corporation. Every IP address is an equal peer.” – Andreas M. Antonopolous
Today we hit a great and classic essay by Andreas on the amazing FEE.org that hits on a key way to think about decentralized network, and a critical part of why they will innovate orders of magnitude more quickly than their centralized counterparts. The difference between “smart” networks and “dumb” networks, and why the dumb will also conquer. Bitcoin is the internet of money, and on read #500, hear Andreas explain why.
Check out the original article at the link below:
https://fee.org/articles/decentralization-why-dumb-networks-are-better/
Other great pieces mentioned in today’s show, along with the thread that includes numerous others for further journey down the rabbit hole:
Lightning Enables Unicast Transactions in Bitcoin:
https://bitcoinaudible.com/?p=347
On Schelling Points, Network Effects, & Lindy:
https://bitcoinaudible.com/?p=4504
Anil’s Amazing thread with 20 fundamental essay for understanding Bitcoin:
https://twitter.com/anilsaidso/status/1290758632238276609?s=20
A huge thank you to our amazing sponsors:
SwanBitcoin – The #1 place to setup your automatic Bitcoin savings plan! (SwanBitcoin.com/guy)
BitBox – Minimal, user friendly, secure, Swiss made, open source, hardware wallet (guyswann.com/BitBox)
LVL.co – The first Free, no-fee exchange & Bitcoin banking services! (guyswann.com/lvl)
—
Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bitcoinaudible/message
Read_499 – The Bitcoin Black Hole Effect [William Clemente]

“If the US Dollar really was to reach an uncontrollable level of inflation, a last move by the Fed may be to do this same trade on a Federal level by printing dollars to acquire Bitcoins to stack on their balance sheet. Only time will tell.” – William Clemente III
Today we read an excellent piece from bitrawr.com by William Clemente on the various feedback loops that could lead not only to the qualitative loss of trust in the fiat system, but a quantitative pull to earn a near risk-free position in the Bitcoin collateralized lending markets. Edited in part by Preston Pysh who has discussed this idea in greater depth, what happens when multiple feedback loops within the Bitcoin markets converge to make it an increasingly liquid, low risk, high yield asset? It creates a Bitcoin Black Hole.
The Bitcoin Black Hole Effect:
https://www.bitrawr.com/the-bitcoin-blackhole-effect
For other great articles and episode mentioned in this show, check out the links below:
Read 489 – The Cantillon Effect 2.0:
https://bitcoinaudible.com/?p=5678
Asset DNA – Speculative Attack:
https://bitcoinaudible.com/?p=5714
Bitcoin is the Great Definancialization:
https://bitcoinaudible.com/?p=5554
The MacroVoices episode on Interest Rates:
https://www.macrovoices.com/946-macrovoices-259-louis-vincent-gave-as-inflationista-as-they-come
A huge thank you to our amazing sponsors:
SwanBitcoin – The #1 place to setup your automatic Bitcoin savings plan! (SwanBitcoin.com/guy)
BitBox – Minimal, user friendly, secure, Swiss made, open source, hardware wallet (guyswann.com/BitBox)
LVL.co – The first Free, no-fee exchange & Bitcoin banking services! (guyswann.com/lvl)
—
Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bitcoinaudible/message
Read_498 – Can Governments Stop Bitcoin? [Alex Gladstein]

“So far, it seems that when governments try to ban or restrict Bitcoin, it ends up merely accelerating the adoption of the currency inside their countries. Governments that have failed miserably with their Wars on Drugs may find stopping people from holding something that’s invisible, borderless, and teleporting much more difficult.” – Alex Gladstein
Today we read an amazing article from Quillette by returning author and brilliant Bitcoiner, Alex Gladstein. Can governments ban Bitcoin? Will they? Will this kill Bitcoin? Find out in an excellent walk through the many different potentialities of a government attack on Bitcoin, and why its likely that they all fail, or backfire in a major. Plus a 50 minute Guy’s Take on all the reasons Alex is potentially right, & what we can draw from Bitcoin’s history that informs this perspective.
Don’t forget to check out the article below, and follow Alex on Twitter:
https://quillette.com/2021/02/21/can-governments-stop-bitcoin/
https://twitter.com/gladstein
For other great episode on this topic and others related to it mentioned in the show:
Bitcoin Cannot be Banned [Parker Lewis]:
https://bitcoinaudible.com/?p=3943
Bitcoin POW is a Decentralized Clock [Grisha]:
https://bitcoinaudible.com/?p=4728
An Unstoppable Force [Guy’s Take]:
https://bitcoinaudible.com/?p=5450
The Sovereign Company Thesis [Ck Snarks]:
https://bitcoinaudible.com/?p=5521
A Lovely welcome back to SwanBitcoin as a supporter of BitcoinAudible. Making the best in Bitcoin available to listen while auto-buying Bitcoin at the same time! SwanBitcoin.com/guy
And to our 2 other wonderful sponsors:
BitBox – Minimal, user friendly, secure, Swiss made, open source, hardware wallet (guyswann.com/BitBox)
LVL.co – The first Free, no-fee exchange & Bitcoin banking services! (guyswann.com/lvl)
—
Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bitcoinaudible/message