Bitcoin Takeover Podcast

Alex Waltz is a prominent Bitcoin historian and film maker, who specializes in digging up information from the first months of Bitcoin's existence. Recently, he launched the ”First Bitcoin Miner” project in order to question whether or not Hal Finney truly was the second mining node on the Bitcoin network.

In this episode, we talk about his work and some geeky facts about Bitcoin's history.

Read Bitcoin: Year One (free download): https://bitcoin-takeover.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Bitcoin-Year-One-Vlad-Costea-Ani-Comic-Book-Demo.pdf

Read Alex's research: https://1stbitcoinminer.com

Sponsors:

Proudly sponsored by Orangerock.com: Trade Without Limits
Orangerock is the pro trading terminal that fits in your pocket. Perps and spot, instant cross-chain swaps, and a self-custodial wallet. Trade crypto, stocks, and commodities with up to 40x leverage. Your keys, no surveillance.
Get app: https://go.orangerock.com/bitcoin-takeover

Sideshift, the place where you can exchange your stablecoins for unconfiscatable, free market money: https://sideshift.ai

LayerTwo Labs, creators of BIP300 and builders of the Drivechain. Now they're hard forking Bitcoin to create Ecash too: https://ecash.com

Cake Wallet, your privacy-friendly self-custody companion. Enables silent payments, PayJoins & Lightning for Bitcoin. Also supports Monero, Zcash, Zano & more. Available on desktop & mobile: https://cakewallet.com

Time stamps:

00:00:41 Introducing Alex Waltz & His Projects

00:03:34 The Philosophy of Art and Filmmaking

00:05:18 Alex's Research for "First Bitcoin Miner"

00:09:28 The First Bitcoin Miners: Hal Finney vs. Dustin Trammell

00:14:37 Early Bitcoin History and Cypherpunk Involvement

00:21:28 Debating Sergio Lerner's "Patoshi" Research

00:25:39 The Technicals of the Patoshi Pattern

00:37:30 Zcash Giveaway Announcement

00:40:10 The Research Process and Dedication

00:43:11 Analyzing Early Bitcoin Block Times

00:50:35 Explaining the Extra Nonce and Network Halts

01:10:18 Satoshi Was in California?

01:25:49 Why This Research Matters

01:36:18 Feedback and Cinematography

01:49:25 The "Satoshi's Don't Exist" Movie Saga

02:00:41 The Bitcoin Community: Then and Now

02:18:43 The "Knots" Fork Controversy & Moral Panic

02:30:39 The Future of Bitcoin Development

02:34:38 Bitcoin's Use Case: Payments vs. Store of Value

02:46:33 What Is The Point of Bitcoin?

02:56:38 Alex's First Bitcoin Purchase

03:00:38 Early Bitcoin Wallets

03:16:20 Mircea Popescu: A Bitcoin Legend

03:48:07 Growing Up in 90s Romania

04:00:48 Final Message: Take Risks and Build

Martin Matejka is the CEO of Firefish, a company which offers a platform where BTC holders can connect with fiat borrowers in order to achieve the ”never sell your bitcoin” status.

In this episode, we talk about how these BTC-backed loans work, and also pursue a more philosophical conversation about the purpose of Bitcoin and whether or not it's currently achieving it.

Sponsors:

Proudly sponsored by Orangerock.com: Trade Without Limits
Orangerock is the pro trading terminal that fits in your pocket. Perps and spot, instant cross-chain swaps, and a self-custodial wallet. Trade crypto, stocks, and commodities with up to 40x leverage. Your keys, no surveillance.
Get app: https://go.orangerock.com/bitcoin-takeover

Sideshift, the place where you can exchange your stablecoins for unconfiscatable, free market money: https://sideshift.ai

LayerTwo Labs, creators of BIP300 and builders of the Drivechain. Now they're hard forking Bitcoin to create Ecash too: https://ecash.com

Cake Wallet, your privacy-friendly self-custody companion. Enables silent payments, PayJoins & Lightning for Bitcoin. Also supports Monero, Zcash, Zano & more. Available on desktop & mobile: https://cakewallet.com

Time stamps:

00:01:14 Intro & sponsors: meet Martin Matejka of Firefish
00:02:11 "Making Bitcoin lending right this time": BlockFi & Celsius PTSD
00:02:53 How the loan marketplace works in a nutshell
00:03:36 The book: "Bitcoin, the Ultimate Collateral"
00:04:31 Why Bitcoin as collateral vs. digital cash
00:05:17 The Elon Musk playbook: borrow, don't sell
00:06:55 "Once I stopped seeing Bitcoin as an investment, life got better"
00:07:24 Being short fiat: the mortgage mindset
00:08:24 Vlad's pushback: spending fuels the system & miner fees
00:09:35 Liquidation risk & timing loans to the market cycle
00:12:14 Staying safe: 50% LTV and "a machine gun in your hands"
00:13:35 Coming soon: loans with no liquidation mechanism
00:15:17 Why Bitcoin-backed loans are still too expensive
00:16:00 Scaling up: 27,000 users, $160M loans, 4,500 BTC
00:17:05 "Almost as much Bitcoin as the Lightning Network"
00:20:22 Why he founded Firefish: a finance guy's contribution
00:21:38 Firefish explained simply: the marketplace model
00:23:12 The tech: escrow, presigned transactions & DLC-like logic
00:24:41 The "zombie apocalypse" recovery transaction
00:26:06 What's the catch? Avoiding the "trust me bro" mandate
00:28:11 Preventing rehypothecation via Bitcoin itself
00:28:45 How Firefish makes money: the origination fee
00:29:33 Promo code BTCTKVR for 30% lower fees on Firefish
00:30:50 Bitcoin-native DeFi vs. bridging & wrapping
00:32:07 Stablecoins, currencies & US availability
00:34:09 Cypherpunk loan settlement & the dispute mechanism
00:37:37 Why 3-of-3 multisig instead of 2-of-3
00:38:31 Oracles, ephemeral borrower keys & how signing works
00:40:01 Lenders need no keys: "my parents can fund loans"
00:40:32 Beating bonds: outperforming bank deposits & tax-free loans
00:42:37 Zcash giveaway & a seed-phrase security lesson
00:45:30 Sponsors: Bitcoin.com News & Layer 2 Labs drivechains
00:48:01 Debate: is Bitcoin just software that should improve?
00:50:58 Austrian economics & "crashing the central banks"
00:51:32 The paper Bitcoin debate: gold's financialization
00:53:29 Trust minimization, Nick Szabo & God protocols
00:55:10 Covenants & understanding both sides of Bitcoin's civil war
01:00:42 The spam/filtering debate & permissionless transactions
01:02:33 Satoshi's Genesis block message & arbitrary data history
01:06:09 "We're stuck debating spam" — limited supply as core value
01:08:15 The underrated educational value of Bitcoin
01:09:21 Where did the newcomers go? ETFs vs. real adoption
01:10:12 How to make Bitcoin cool again & the FTX taint
01:11:46 Eulogy for Paralelni Polis / Institute of Cryptoanarchy
01:15:44 Grandma's savings destroyed by inflation
01:17:05 The wedding money & the car that never came
01:18:03 Inflation is a much deeper problem than the CPI
01:20:24 The worst thing for Bitcoin: losing its identity
01:21:42 "Do you know what Zcash is?" Privacy vs. fixed supply
01:22:42 Competition & shitcoins: the jealousy analogy
01:23:28 Losing dominance & the Bitcoin Cash profitability metric
01:25:11 Sponsor: SideShift.ai for stablecoin swaps
01:26:11 Why try Firefish today? Rates as low as 5%
01:28:38 Closing thoughts & farewell

Grafton Clark is best known in the Bitcoin space for his work at SatoshiLabs and Vexl. But more recently, he discovered vibe coding and completely fell in love with it. In this episode, we talk about all the cool stuff you can just build with help from AI... and where Bitcoin fits into this equation.

Hopefully, this dialogue will inspire you to create something cool, that reignites your love for computers.

Time stamps:

00:00:36 Intro: Grafton on freedom of transactions & cash
00:01:45 Breaking FUD: onboarding a friend through gaming
00:03:13 Writing for humans or for AI to summarize?
00:05:40 The internet's resurgence & discovering Nostr
00:07:42 Digital ID & age verification fears
00:08:03 Gem: the "Cool For Free" iPod scheme story
00:09:30 Cake Wallet Zcash giveaway setup
00:10:14 "I don't want hardware anymore" — build your own tools
00:12:04 Building an Apple Watch live-music app in 3 days
00:13:28 Roadstr, mesh networks & freedom tech
00:16:27 The vibe coding debate
00:20:18 Grafton's setup: Mac Mini, OpenClaw & self-hosting
00:23:25 Taming a giant live-music library with AI
00:25:35 Learning vs regurgitating: AI and education
00:26:38 Two sides of everything: Bitcoiners love to argue
00:28:28 Why a Zcash giveaway? Zerocash history explained
00:30:03 "That was the whole idea of maximalism"
00:30:48 The Monero address troll
00:32:20 Sending Zcash via Cake Wallet
00:33:22 No CEO, no HR: why Satoshi disappearing matters
00:35:08 Zcash vs Monero: comparing the privacy tech
00:36:46 The culture problem: HODLing vs spending
00:40:03 Hot take: "If you don't use Bitcoin as money, it's a Ponzi"
00:40:47 Michael Saylor, pizza day & the Manhattan quote
00:41:57 Pokemon cards & what makes a "real" Bitcoiner
00:43:21 Buying a Nintendo Switch with Bitcoin
00:44:35 Find "digital gold" in the white paper
00:46:36 Satoshi never envisioned KYC
00:48:14 Gem: privacy means "dance like no one's watching"
00:51:08 The Hawk Tuah girl & normalizing overexposure
00:54:25 Brands as verbs & Gen Z's "ask chat"
00:57:05 Millennials, analog cravings & LLM imperfections
00:59:01 Futurama, AI dependence & moving to a farm
01:01:09 Impostor syndrome & the meaning of work
01:02:46 UBI, Idiocracy & doomscrolling
01:04:31 Gem: the Super Bowl's most powerful ad
01:06:35 Is today's propaganda any different?
01:07:44 AI voice-cloning scams & protecting your parents
01:10:24 Data leaks, KYC & living life in public
01:12:08 Building forts, kids' dreams & role models today
01:17:26 Building an empire from the bedroom: EA & N64
01:18:47 Grafton's mom, the video game champion
01:21:18 Community, church & Hurricane Katrina
01:24:58 Work from home vs real socialization
01:26:46 "Is this still a Bitcoin podcast?" Does Bitcoin fix it?
01:30:01 Spend it, earn it: value for value & Juraj Bednar
01:33:31 Why onboarding friends so often fails (& Dentacoin)
01:37:08 Bitcoin is the revenge of the nerds
01:39:16 Mississippi roots & cowboy boots in Europe
01:45:04 Bitcoin.com news
01:46:26 Layer Two Labs & drivechains
01:47:17 SideShift.ai for stablecoin payments
01:48:33 Vexl: peer-to-peer, face-to-face Bitcoin trading
01:50:37 KYC kills: kidnappings & "kill your customer"
01:53:35 Coinbase & Binance KYC leaks
01:54:19 Why Saylor doesn't represent every Bitcoiner
01:56:02 Why base-layer privacy ends the Knots debate
01:57:05 AI eating Bitcoin mining & US hash rate
02:01:27 MiCA is killing European Bitcoin adoption
02:05:33 Gem: grandpa's secret $20 & why cash matters
02:07:07 Switzerland, Alexis Roussel & the right to a human
02:10:05 Privacy as the major concern with AI
02:11:18 Where to find Grafton's open source projects

Josh Swihart is the founder of ZODL: the Zcash Open Development Lab. Basically a for profit reincarnation of the old Electric Coin Company, which inherited the dev teams and projects.

During his previous Bitcoin Takeover podcast appearance in November 2024 (S15 E62), Zcash was a struggling privacy project with very little support and a rather disappointing price action. In June 2026, Zcash is the rising star of the cryptocurrency market, with plans to scale to billions of users and ever-improving shielding technology.

In this episode, we talk about the good, the bad, and the controversial moments in the recent history of Zcash... and why Bitcoin didn't activate Zerocash yet.

Time stamps:
00:01:14 Intro: Josh Swihart returns after 20 months
00:02:07 Why Zcash is "in a class of its own" (and self-defeating)
00:03:28 Shielded note Q: the run on the Orchard pool before Iron Wood
00:05:22 What are shielded pools? Sprout, Sapling, Orchard explained
00:06:26 The Orchard vulnerability found by Taylor Hornby
00:06:48 Why Zcash matters to Bitcoin: Zerocoin, Zerocash, Halo 2
00:09:06 The secret: from near-delisting at $30 to near top 10
00:11:03 Governance battles, killing the dev fund, refocusing ECC
00:13:03 Peacemonger research and focusing on the first 100 users
00:14:09 Keystone, NEAR intents swaps, and shielded pool growth
00:15:23 Reflexivity and the macro case (Canadian truckers, seizures)
00:16:32 Cake Wallet, Vic Sharma, and the ZEC integration recognition problem
00:17:57 The Monero rivalry and the privacy renaissance
00:19:35 "Cypherpunk does not mean criminal": Samourai vs Wasabi
00:23:04 Railgun comparison and why fungibility matters
00:25:02 Zmap, Flexa, and spending shielded ZEC in stores
00:26:21 Buying lunch at Chipotle and a Ford F150 truck with Zcash
00:27:33 Giveaway setup + sponsors
00:30:32 Why is Zcash "lied about a ton"?
00:34:03 Debunking the low anonymity-set myth and DeFi integrations
00:35:48 "Main character syndrome," paid FUD, and the influencer claim
00:38:50 Uncorrelated price + maximalist FUD around the Orchard bug
00:40:40 The ethics of disclosure and Taylor Hornby's character
00:45:03 The security budget problem and Network Sustainability Module
00:46:56 Scaling Zcash: Tachyon, recursion, and off-chain services
00:49:35 Do shielded memos bloat the chain?
00:51:32 The shielded stablecoins / shielded assets debate
00:58:31 Last giveaway call + ZODL phone overheating
00:59:12 New user Q: where's the privacy when you spend?
01:01:02 Shielded vs transparent transactions explained
01:03:22 Number reveal and winners
01:06:39 Crypto Visa/Mastercard debit cards: winning or losing?
01:09:56 Has Bitcoin been co-opted? Adam Back and incentives
01:15:20 What stops Zcash from being co-opted like Bitcoin?
01:19:52 Decentralization and killing the trademark agreement
01:21:31 Many orgs now: Foundation, Shielded Labs, Tachyon, Valor
01:23:21 No funding from exchanges or mining pools
01:26:04 ZODL origin: Balaji, fundraising, and the ECC split
01:29:17 ZODL's business model: 50 bps on swaps
01:30:01 Hardware wallets: Keystone, Passport, Trezor Safe 7
01:34:07 How Slush discovered Bitcoin through Zooko
01:35:37 Zcash ASIC demand and decentralizing mining
01:38:51 ECC wind-down, the Bootstrap settlement, and dev funds
01:42:38 Thoughts on ZNS (Zcash Naming Service)
01:44:47 Living with the FUD and "Zionist coin" conspiracies
01:46:31 Why disclose the bug publicly? Transparency vs trust
01:48:18 Inside the emergency coordination with pools and exchanges
01:49:52 Echoes of Bitcoin's 2013 hard fork
01:51:49 Iron Wood and Tachyon upgrade timelines
01:53:31 Closing: the Zcash dance and where to follow Josh

Kieran Mesquka is a contributor to privacy projects, best known for his work on Railgun for Ethereum. He is also an advocate for freedom-maximizing technologies and a connoisseur of Zero Knowledge privacy.

In this episode, we talk about what it's like to build shielded pools and anonymization tools in a political landscape that actively fights against it.

Time stamps:
00:01:10 - Introducing Kieran Mesquka

00:02:21 - Kieran's Early Crypto Involvement, GPU Mining

00:03:54 - Discovering Bitcoin

00:06:31 - Transition to Ethereum Smart Contracts

00:10:24 - Motivation for Working on Privacy

00:20:33 - Comparing Tornado Cash and Railgun

00:26:30 - Why Tornado Cash Developers Got in Trouble

00:29:10 - The "Kieran is Satoshi" Joke

00:31:07 - General Online Privacy and Naomi Brockwell

00:33:25 - The Surveillance of Smart Devices

00:43:43 - The Problem with Subscriptions for Hardware

00:46:35 - Building Privacy for Mainstream Adoption

00:51:04 - Podcast Sponsors: Orange Rock, Cake Wallet, SideShift.AI, Layer Two Labs

00:54:49 - Technical Similarities Between Railgun and Zcash

01:00:26 - Opt-in vs. Default Privacy

01:02:37 - Why Bitcoin Lacks Advanced Privacy

01:10:32 - Railgun's Multi-Chain Presence

01:15:05 - The State of Ethereum and Privacy Demand

01:19:13 - Railgun's Elevator Pitch

01:20:47 - Railgun's Transaction Filtering System

01:29:20 - Trusting Zero-Knowledge Proofs

01:36:18 - Future of Privacy Technology

01:40:37 - How to Follow Kieran's Work