Bitcoin Takeover Podcast

• S16 E43: Vikrant Sharma on Cake Wallet, Bitcoin & Privacy

  Vikrant Sharma, better known as Vik, is the CEO and founder of Cake Wallet: the first Bitcoin wallet to support both Silent Payments and PayJoins. In this episode, we talk about the wallet's Monero roots & what is next in terms of features. Time stamps: 00:01:05 - Introducing Vik 00:01:24 - Cake Wallet Features for Bitcoin and Monero 00:03:08 - Background Sync Improvements 00:03:49 - Monero.com Wallet Discussion 00:04:41 - Monero Community Insights 00:05:01 - Privacy in Monero Transactions 00:06:33 - Funding and Revenue Model 00:08:29 - Vik's Background in Steel and Tech 00:10:34 - Discovering Bitcoin and Privacy Apps 00:13:22 - Launching Cakewallet for Monero 00:14:23 - Why Start with Monero Over Bitcoin 00:15:35 - Origin of the Name "Cake Wallet" 00:17:36 - Order of Coins Added to Cake Wallet 00:19:09 - PayJoins and Silent Payments 00:21:11 - Citrea 00:22:34 - Layer 2 Labs and Drivechains 00:24:32 - Silent Payments Address Drama 00:25:35 - Qubic Mining Drama in Monero 00:30:42 - Monero's Resilience to Attacks 00:32:53 - Monero as a Stablecoin 00:33:41 - Use It to Win: Spending vs Hodling 00:36:38 - Treasury Company Plans 00:39:28 - Future of Privacy Coins 00:42:58 - SideShift.ai 00:44:20 - NoOnes.com 00:45:29 - Bitcoin.com News 00:46:37 - Taxes and Privacy Coins 00:48:42 - Layers of Privacy 00:59:00 - Zcash and Privacy Experiments 01:00:36 - Growing the Crypto Space 01:02:44 - Supported Coins: Ethereum 01:06:17 - Litecoin and MWEB Integration 01:08:43 - Dogecoin Addition 01:10:37 - Wownero for Monero Community 01:11:17 - Bitcoin Cash Support in Cake Wallet 01:13:30 - Polygon and Tron for Low Fees 01:15:44 - Nano for Feeless Payments 01:17:00 - Decred and Community Overlap 01:18:14 - Zano and Confidential Assets 01:20:06 - Lightning Network Plans 01:21:46 - Zcash Future Integration 01:23:02 - Cupcake Airgapped Wallet 01:26:00 - Considering Kaspa 01:29:56 - Dash Privacy Debate 01:32:20 - Network Effects and Wallet Choices 01:34:57 - Raven Coin Experiment 01:35:43 - Hiring Developers 01:36:18 - Custom Wallpapers and UI Overhaul 01:37:12 - One Seed for All Wallets 01:38:31 - How Many of the Supported Coins Will Survive? 01:39:46 - Multi-Coin Payment Services 01:40:32 - Pay Invoice Feature 01:42:03 - User Data and Privacy Policy 01:45:49 - Node Data Handling 01:47:04 - Advice on Self-Custody 01:48:17 - Where to Follow Vik and Cake Wallet 01:48:51 - Closing Remarks

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• S16 E42: Michael Tidwell on Bitcoin Drama & Tabconf

  Michael Tidwell is the organizer of Tabconf, the longest running Bitcoin technical conference which takes place every year in Atlanta. In this episode, we talk about Bitcoin drama & use a fun roulette game to figure out who's guilty of it. Time stamps: 00:01:09 - Welcome and episode gimmick intro 00:01:30 - Sponsors shoutout 00:01:36 - Bitcoin drama discussion starts 00:03:38 - Bitcoin Core vs Knots debate 00:04:28 - Wheel spin: Blame the plebs 00:06:52 - Egg pick: Solution is "use tabs" 00:07:56 - Adam Back's "use tabs" context from 2017 00:09:09 - Paul Sztorc's role and personality 00:10:52 - Defining "pleb" in Bitcoin culture 00:13:42 - Hodlonaut story and Lightning Torch 00:16:32 - Roger Ver interview drama 00:18:43 - Hijacking Bitcoin book discussion 00:22:58 - Layer 2 Labs sponsor plug and drivechains 00:25:14 - Citrea ZK rollup explanation 00:27:48 - Liquid federation vs true sidechains 00:32:39 - Core vs Knots diffs and risks 00:33:52 - Peter Todd's OP_RETURN proposal 00:34:56 - CSAM fears and cultural debates 00:38:05 - Illicit content already on chain 00:40:54 - Multiple Bitcoin implementations history 00:44:03 - Libbitcoin rewrite and optimizations 00:44:37 - Bitcoin Cash fork and implementations 00:46:42 - Potential hard fork predictions 01:46:05 - MEV in Bitcoin via game example 01:47:57 - Drivechains delay: Blame the spooks 01:50:27 - Solution: Hard fork 01:51:59 - Drivechains on Litecoin pros/cons 01:55:01 - Litecoin as testbed for Bitcoin tech 01:57:59 - Stablecoins on Bitcoin layers 02:00:16 - Lightning Network limitations meme 02:01:35 - Lightning critique and distractions 02:04:49 - Lightning wheel spin: Blame Jack Dorsey 02:07:34 - Solution: Listen to Bitcoin Takeover 02:08:28 - Too many Bitcoin conferences issue 02:10:45 - Early Bitcoin conferences like San Jose 2013 02:13:00 - Craig Wright blame: Roger Ver 02:17:08 - Solution: Sell all your Bitcoin 02:18:24 - Reasons to sell all Bitcoin 02:19:47 - BSV community and Craig Wright claims 02:23:28 - Mental health in Bitcoin and seeking clarity 02:27:23 - Bitcoin's robustness to issues 02:31:26 - Advice for newcomers on understanding Bitcoin 02:32:41 - TabConf plug and history books 02:35:05 - Fortune-telling wrap-up and farewell

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• S16 E41: Yonatan Sompolinsky on Bitcoin, Kaspa & Proof of Work

  Yonatan Sompolinsky is an academic in the field of computer science, best known for his work on the GHOST protocol (Greedy Heaviest Observed Subtree, which was cited in the Ethereum whitepaper) and the way he applied his research to create Kaspa. In this episode, we talk about scaling Proof of Work and why Kaspa might be a worthy contender to process global payments. –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Time stamps: 00:01:22 - Debunking rumors: Why some think Yonatan is Satoshi Nakamoto 00:02:52 - Candidates for Satoshi: Charles Hoskinson, Charlie Lee, Zooko, and Alex Chepurnoy 00:03:41 - Alex Chepurnoy as a Satoshi-like figure 00:04:07 - Kaspa overview: DAG structure, no orphaned blocks, generalization of Bitcoin 00:04:55 - Similarities between Kaspa and Bitcoin fundamentals 00:06:12 - Why Kaspa couldn't be built directly on Bitcoin 00:08:05 - Kaspa as generalization of Nakamoto consensus 00:11:55 - Origins of GHOST protocol and early DAG concepts for Bitcoin scaling 00:13:16 - Academic motivation for GHOST and transitioning to computer science 00:13:50 - Turtle pet named Bitcoin 00:15:22 - Increasing block rate in Bitcoin and GHOST protocol 00:16:57 - Meeting Gregory Maxwell and discovering GHOST flaws 00:20:00 - Yonatan's views on drivechains and Bitcoin maximalism 00:20:36 - Defining Bitcoin maximalism: Capital B vs lowercase b 00:23:18 - Satoshi's support for Namecoin and merged mining 00:24:12 - Bitcoin culture in 2013-2018: Opposing other functionalities 00:26:01 - Vitalik's 2014 article on Bitcoin maximalism 00:26:13 - Andrew Poelstra's opposition to other assets on Bitcoin 00:26:38 - Bitcoin culture: Distaste for DeFi, criticism of Ethereum as a scam 00:28:03 - Bitcoin Cash developments: Cash tokens, cash fusion, contracts 00:28:39 - Rejection of Ethereum in Bitcoin circles 00:30:18 - Ethereum's successful PoS transition despite critics 00:35:04 - Ethereum's innovation: From Plasma to ZK rollups, nurturing development 00:37:04 - Stacks protocol and criticism from Luke Dashjr 00:39:02 - Bitcoin culture justifying technical limitations 00:41:01 - Declining Bitcoin adoption as money, rise of altcoins for payments 00:43:02 - Kaspa's aspirations: Merging sound money with DeFi, beyond just payments 00:43:56 - Possibility of tokenized Bitcoin on Kaspa 00:46:30 - Native currency advantage and friction in bridges 00:48:49 - WBTC on Ethereum scale vs Bitcoin L2s 00:53:33 - Quotes: Richard Dawkins on atheism, Milton Friedman on Yap Island money 00:55:44 - Story of Kaspa's messy fair launch in 2021 01:14:08 - Tech demo of Kaspa wallet experience 01:28:45 - Kaspa confirmation times & transaction fees 01:43:26 - GHOST DAG visualizer 01:44:10 - Mining Kaspa 01:55:48 - Data pruning in Kaspa, DAG vs MimbleWimble 02:01:40 - Grin & the fairest launch 02:12:21 - Zcash scaling & ZKP OP code in Kaspa 02:19:50 - Jameson Lopp, cold storage & self custody elitism 02:35:08 - Social recovery 02:41:00 - Amir Taaki, DarkFi & DAO 02:53:10 - Nick Szabo's God Protocols 03:00:00 - Layer twos on Kaspa for DeFi 03:13:09 - How Kaspa's DeFi will resemble Solana 03:24:03 - Centralized exchanges vs DeFi 03:32:05 - The importance of community projects 03:37:00 - DAG KNIGHT and its resilience 03:51:00 - DAG KNIGHT tradeoffs 03:58:18 - Blockchain vs DAG, the bottleneck for Kaspa 04:03:00 - 100 blocks per second? 04:11:43 - Question from Quai's Dr. K 04:17:03 - Doesn't Kaspa require super fast internet? 04:23:10 - Are ASIC miners desirable? 04:33:53 - Why Proof of Work matters 04:35:55 - A short history of Bitcoin mining 04:44:00 - DAG's sequencing 04:49:09 - Phantom GHOST DAG 04:52:47 - Why Kaspa had high inflation initially 04:55:10 - Selfish mining 05:03:00 - K Heavy Hash & other community questions 06:33:20 - Latency settings in DAG KNIGHT for security 06:36:52 - Aviv Zohar's involvement in Kaspa research 06:38:07 - World priced in Kaspa after hyperinflation 06:39:51 - Kaspa's fate intertwined with crypto 06:40:29 - Kaspa contracts vs Solana, why better for banks 06:42:53 - Cohesive developer experience in Kaspa like Solana 06:45:22 - Incorporating ZK design in Kaspa smart contracts 06:47:22 - Heroes: Garry Kasparov 06:48:12 - Shift in attitude from academics like Hoskinson, Buterin, Back 06:53:07 - Adam Back's criticism of Kaspa 06:55:57 - Michael Jordan and LeBron analogy for Bitcoiners' mindset 06:58:02 - Can Kaspa flip Bitcoin in market cap 07:00:34 - Gold and USD market cap comparison 07:06:06 - Collaboration with Kai team 07:10:37 - Community improvement: More context on crypto 07:13:43 - Theoretical maximum TPS for Kaspa 07:16:05 - Full ZK on L1 improvements 07:17:45 - Atomic composability and logic zones in Kaspa 07:23:12 - Sparkle and monolithic UX feel 07:26:00 - Wrapping up: Beating podcast length record, final thoughts on Bitcoin and Kaspa 07:27:31 - Why Yonatan called a scammer despite explanations 07:32:29 - Luke Dashjr's views and disconnect 07:33:01 - Hope for Bitcoin scaling and revolution

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• S16 E40: Cory Klippsten on Bitcoin Culture & Maximalism

  Cory Klippsten is the CEO of Swan Bitcoin and has a long history in both traditional finance and the Bitcoin space. In this two-part episode, he talks about why Bitcoin is winning and how the culture around it has changed.

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• S16 E39: Karl Kreder (Dr. K) on Scaling Proof of Work, Bitcoin & Quai

  Karl Kreder, better known as Dr. K, is best known in the space for researching the use of merged-mined subnets to scale Proof of Work in 2018 – a concept which led to the launch of the Quai Network, which introduced the Proof of Entropy Minima (PoEM) consensus for high transaction throughput within a decentralized environment. Today, we talk about his views on Bitcoin, why Proof of Work is still relevant in a world that's converging towards the more convenient Proof of Stake, and how the Quai Network works. Time stamps: 00:00 Intro & Welcome 00:03:00 Discussion Length Challenge 00:04:00 Dr. K's Bitcoin Background 00:06:00 Wallet Security & Lattice1 00:08:00 Scaling PoW Networks 00:11:00 PoW vs PoS Debate 00:13:00 Fair Launch & Distribution Issues 00:15:00 Quai Launch & Hash Rate 00:17:00 GPU Mining & ProgPow 00:20:00 ASIC Manufacturers 00:23:00 NiceHash & AI Integration 00:26:00 Quai Network Inspiration 00:29:00 Electronic Cash Necessity 00:32:00 Quai Scale to Replace Visa 00:34:00 Decentralization & No Roadmap 00:38:00 LayerTwo Labs Ad & DriveChains 00:40:00 Hierarchy for Validation 00:42:00 Payment Platforms Limits 00:44:00 Scale Beyond Current L1s 00:46:00 Monetary History & Gold 00:50:00 Self-Custody Challenges 00:52:00 Kaspa Differences & DAG 00:54:00 Bitcoin Love & Improvements 00:56:00 BSV Technical Limits 00:58:00 Consensus as Limit 01:00:00 Wolfram Physics Project 01:02:00 Scale Analogy & Consensus 01:04:00 Quai Node Hardware 01:06:00 Systemically Important Nodes 01:08:00 Bitcoin Privacy Issues 01:11:00 CoinJoin & Deniability 01:13:00 Good vs Bad Nodes 01:15:00 Economic Surplus Incentives 01:16:00 Bitcoin.com News Ad 01:19:00 Government as Enemy 01:21:00 Digital Paths & Freedom 01:23:00 Bitcoin as Linux & Tribalism 01:25:00 Legit Coins Assessment 01:26:00 EVM Compatibility Reasons 01:34:00 Why Choose EVM 01:35:00 Programming Languages 01:37:00 Simplicity Language 01:38:00 EVM as Standard 01:40:00 Bitcoin Changes Proposal 01:42:00 Quai Mainnet Visualization 01:45:00 Sharding Coordination 01:46:00 PoEM Consensus Mechanism 01:49:00 Chain Work & Withholding 01:52:00 Work Shares Explained 01:54:00 Miner Shard Choice & Balance 01:57:00 Privacy in Sharding 01:59:00 Settlement Time Trade-Off 02:00:00 Ethereum Usage Stats 02:03:00 Qi Token & Energy Dollar 02:12:00 Quai Deflationary Supply 02:16:00 Qi Privacy Properties 02:24:00 Node Incentives & Markets 02:27:00 Kipper Tipping App 02:31:00 Blip Pay Wallet Demo 02:40:00 EVM Big Deal 02:43:00 Quai Launch Reception 02:47:00 Industry Reviews 02:49:00 PoW Sampling Theory 03:02:00 Kipper Demo 03:07:00 Multiplatform Kipper 03:12:00 Qi Denominations & Pruning 03:14:00 Messaging via Qi 03:15:00 PWAs Advantages 03:19:00 Neo PoW Explained 03:21:00 Data Provider Agnostic 03:23:00 Transaction Propagation 03:26:00 Global TPS Demand 03:28:00 Interchange Integration 03:31:00 Direct Crypto POS 03:33:00 Node Requirements in Sharding 03:35:00 Kaspa Attention Reasons 03:38:00 ASIC Future in Quai 03:41:00 Trilemma & Tetralemma 03:43:00 Hierarchy Trade-Offs 03:47:00 Security Notes 03:50:00 Resource Markets 03:52:00 Quantum Resistance 03:57:00 Work Shares Uses 04:00:00 Decentralized Pools (Dools) 04:02:00 Quai Simplicity 04:07:00 Tree Chains Comparison 04:09:00 Homogeneous Security 04:10:00 Vitalik Story 04:18:00 Qi Details 04:24:00 Dool Mechanics 04:27:00 Work Shares Info 04:29:00 2000 Viewers Milestone 04:29:00 Magic Word 04:31:00 Monero Reorgs & Qubic 04:34:00 Transaction Censorship 04:37:00 Red Balloon Problem 04:38:00 Selfish Mining 04:42:00 Liquidity Arc 04:44:00 Culture Challenge 04:46:00 Regional Trends 04:48:00 State Bloat vs Consensus 04:51:00 Storage Scaling 04:54:00 Propagation Time 04:56:00 400ms Lower Bound 04:58:00 Interplanetary Transactions 05:00:00 Reference Resolution 05:05:00 Propagation & Consensus 05:07:00 Independent Samples 05:08:00 Price Pump 05:10:00 Ideology & Tech 05:11:00 Bitcoin Scaling Limits 05:12:00 Gold as PoW 05:14:00 Self-Custody 05:17:00 Yield & MSTR 05:20:00 Pandemic Inflation 05:22:00 Dollar Future 05:24:00 Bitcoin Heterodoxy 05:25:00 Maximalism 05:29:00 Cult Dynamics 05:30:00 Mises & Rothbard 05:32:00 Roger Ver 05:36:00 Saylor Infiltration 05:37:00 Memes & Philosophies 05:38:00 Leader Emergence 05:39:00 CIA Speculation 05:40:00 Who is Satoshi? 05:41:00 Code Quality 05:42:00 Burning Keys 05:43:00 Martti Malmi Insights 05:44:00 Satoshi Is Not NSA 05:45:00 21m Is Arbitrary 05:46:00 Early Changes 05:47:00 Block Size Temp 05:48:00 Economics Assumptions 05:49:00 Satoshi Scaling 05:52:00 Tech Optimism 05:53:00 Industry Honesty 05:56:00 Sharding Complexity 05:57:00 PoW Scalability 05:58:00 Consensus Efficiency 05:59:00 Sharding Compat 06:00:00 Memes as Rhetoric 06:02:00 Hoskinson Cult 06:03:00 Fake Engagement 06:04:00 Steam Adoption 06:07:00 Overstock & Patrick Byrne 06:10:00 Design Philosophy 06:11:00 Frustrated Devs 06:12:00 Talent Exodus 06:14:00 Follow Dr. K 06:15:00 Message to Yonatan 06:16:00 Quai vs Kaspa 06:17:00 Closing Remarks

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