Bitcoin Takeover Podcast

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

Almost 9 years since the big split of the Bitcoin community, it's time to learn more about how the Bitcoin Cash chain developed. Calin Culianu is the creator of Fulcrum, an efficient privacy-preserving SPV client. Steve Thurmond is the most ardent advocate for Cash Stamps: a convenient paper wallet system that's used for gifting.

Throughout the episode, more BCH community members will join to have the conversation that you will never hear on any other Bitcoin podcast.

Time stamps:

00:01:09 Introducing Calin Culianu & Steve Thurmond

00:02:37 The Evolution of Bitcoin Cash

00:03:59 Who is Behind Bitcoin Cash Now?

00:06:34 Narratives and Misconceptions

00:07:53 Vlad's Perspective on the Fork

00:09:44 Bitcoin's Capture and Speculative Nature

00:11:48 Vlad's Journey with Lightning Network

00:16:07 Blockstream and the "Banker" Conspiracy

00:18:33 The Security Budget Debate

00:22:12 The Problem with IOU Systems like Lightning

00:24:02 Vlad's Disappointment with Onboarding

00:24:58 Ethereum's Rise Amidst Bitcoin's Infighting

00:27:52 The Bankers Won, But Crypto Still Exists

00:32:16 The Future of Bitcoin and Firing Core Devs

00:33:08 The Wall of Consensus in BTC

00:39:19 The Multi-Coin Future

00:42:48 Bitcoin Cash's Development Philosophy

00:49:08 Craig Wright's Controversial Involvement

00:55:16 The Impact of Contentious Forks

00:58:55 The Resilience of Bitcoin Cash

01:02:32 The Value of Open Source Competition

01:08:51 Greg Maxwell's Influence

01:12:00 The Ecash fork

01:25:02 Introducing New BCH Community Members

01:26:38 Building Smart Contracts on Bitcoin Cash

01:34:06 Why UTXO is Better than EVM

01:40:07 Can You Run a BCH Node?

01:41:07 The Flawed "Run a Node" Narrative

01:53:27 The Dangers of RBF and the Importance of 0-Conf

02:05:07 One-Minute Blocks Proposal

02:08:02 Finality and User Experience in Wallets

02:12:13 The "It's Just Money, Bro" Philosophy

02:41:39 What Can You Buy with BCH?

02:48:28 The Permissionless Nature of BCH

02:52:12 The Paradox of Layer Twos

02:57:18 The Stigma of Building on BCH

02:58:21 The Changing Culture of Bitcoin Cash

03:11:35 Ordinals and the "Spam" Debate

03:17:07 Would BCH Still Have a Nice Dev Culture If Michael Saylor Started Buying?

03:28:14 Quantum Computing and Satoshi's Coins

03:42:59 The Tail Emission Debate

03:50:11 The Culture is the Ultimate Defense

03:53:16 The Politicization of Bitcoin Development

03:59:26 Privacy and Fungibility

04:02:21 The Future of Privacy on BCH

04:36:12 Fulcrum: An Electrum Server Implementation

04:38:54 The Litecoin Question

04:49:13 The Difficulty of Recreating Bitcoin's Genesis

04:51:38 The Long-Term Bet on SHA-256

04:54:12 A Break and Introduction to Rosco

05:48:33 CashScript and Smart Contracts on BCH

05:55:22 BCH vs. Ethereum Smart Contracts

06:03:05 The UTXO Stack and Abstraction Layers

06:43:30 The Avalanche Pre-Consensus Question

06:45:51 The "Tax" Fork

07:04:06 The Failed Attack on Bitcoin Cash

07:08:58 The 2018 Inflation Bug Disclosure

07:22:46 The Michael Saylor Phenomenon

07:28:41 The Arrest of Roger Ver

07:39:28 Spending Crypto in the Real World

07:44:22 The End of Crypto-Friendly Spaces in Europe

07:52:05 Prediction Markets and Community Sponsorship

08:08:17 Robin Linus is Jealous of BCH Opcodes

08:09:50 Final Thoughts and Conclusion

Milan De Reede is the co-founder of Nano GPT: a service that allows you to access all the premium (as well as free) AI models from the same interface, as you pay with bitcoin (and a bunch of other supported coins) for every query and prompt.

It successfully allows users to experiment, save money on otherwise expensive subscriptions, and build without any limits (outside of the tokens budget).

In this episode, we talk about the origins of Nano GPT, why it's so useful, and how you can get started with vibe coding your dream project. Essentially, my conversation with Milan De Reede finds itself at the intersection between cryptocurrencies and AI: a concept that may become increasingly popular in the future.

Try Nano GPT today with my referral code, get some bonuses: https://nano-gpt.com/r/Qx83bnwz

Time stamps:

00:01:07 Introducing Milan & Nano GPT

00:03:03 The Origins of Nano GPT

00:04:31 How Nano Cryptocurrency Works

00:05:25 Nano vs. Sharding

00:08:08 Validator Incentives in Nano

00:10:44 Nano's Proof-of-Stake-like System

00:11:57 Critique of Bitcoin Mining Centralization

00:16:30 The Impact of AI on Bitcoin Mining

00:18:11 Proof-of-Work vs. Proof-of-Stake Security

00:22:18 The Monero 51% Attack Risk

00:23:41 Nano GPT's Most Used Cryptocurrencies (Monero, Zcash, Bitcoin, and Nano)

00:27:16 Upcoming Bitcoin Hard Fork: ECash

00:30:15 The Quantum Computing Threat to Bitcoin

00:33:15 The Blurring Lines at Bitcoin Conferences

00:36:41 Online vs. In-Person Crypto Debates

00:39:47 Sponsor Mentions

00:42:40 How Nano GPT Selects and Hosts AI Models

00:45:06 The "Auto Model" Feature

00:46:33 Privacy and Anonymity on Nano GPT

00:54:14 The Business Model of Nano GPT

00:55:23 User Growth and Community

00:57:15 Incentivizing Crypto Payments on Nano GPT

01:07:02 The Impact of AI on Society

01:09:44 AI's Role in Education and Plagiarism

01:13:16 The Future of AI and Human Creativity

01:18:20 The Vision Behind Nano GPT

Zach Herbert is the CEO of Foundation, a company which specializes in building hardware wallets that offer extra security features. The latest model, the Passport Prime, aims to also replace YubiKey for Two Factor Authentication and other more expensive encrypted storage devices. But now thanks to AI and the open source app store, new possibilities have opened up.

Buy your Passport Prime using promo code ”BTCTKVR” and get a free bumper case, worth $19!

Time stamps:

00:01:07 Introducing Zach Herbert, CEO of Foundation

00:03:11 Live Unboxing of Passport Prime

00:04:14 Foundation's Sci-Fi Inspiration

00:05:32 Passport Prime First Impressions

00:08:40 Factory Reset and Resale

00:09:49 Quantum Link and Bluetooth Setup

00:15:24 Firmware Update Process

00:17:43 Haptic Feedback and User Experience

00:20:05 Magic Backup with NFC Key Cards

00:25:50 Restoring from a Magic Backup

00:26:45 User Interface and Upcoming Changes

00:29:02 KeyOS: The Custom Operating System

00:32:36 Active Tamper-Proofing

00:35:49 Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) Feature

00:37:13 The Vault App

00:43:39 Live Device Wipe and Restore

00:48:57 Troubleshooting the Restore Process

00:50:18 Market Position and Competition

00:52:29 How Magic Backup Works

00:56:21 Foundation's Open-Source App Store

01:01:46 Solving Digital Life Security

01:18:07 Giveaway Winner Announcement

01:31:01 Manufacturing Passport Prime in the USA

01:46:06 Thoughts on Duress Mode

01:56:26 AI Integration and Vibe Coding

02:07:29 Business Model and Subscription Service

02:30:39 The Future is Not Air-Gapped