"I'm a Bitcoin skeptic. I'm not buying Bitcoin in 2024, even if it goes back to its recent all-time highs, or higher. Here's why." ~ Ben Gran Ben breaks down his view of Bitcoin and why he cannot see or understand any reason it would go higher. Why he doesn't invest in things that don't produce anything, because this is antithetical to investment. Why he doesn't see how something that has no purpose could possibly continue increasing in value. And how something that people claim will be the most valuable asset in the world, will also be the dominant money, because (obviously) these two ideas ..read more

"If you care about your...country, read Ludwig von Mises and the six lessons of the Austrian economic school." ~ Renato Moicano With a surge in interest thanks the UFC fighter Renato Moicano, Mises's Six Lessons is suddenly in the popular lexicon. After knocking out his opponent he took to the mic to share his love of freedom, and the critical importance in understanding Austrian economics. Is the tide of freedom and the culture of common sense turning? And what are Mises's six lessons, and what can they teach us? All this and more in today's episode with a read from Jonathan Newman at the Mi ..read more

Many people make the serious miscalculation, that if the CPI isn't too high, then printing money isn't a problem and doesn't really cost them anything. This couldn't be further from the truth. All it means is that the cost is just that much harder to see. But if you want to look at something that is truly dominated by the fiat culture and incentives of the money, there is no better example, than finance. This is where the money printing begins, and so all of the disastrous effects of monetary inflation and fiat, occur first, and to the greatest degree, in the financial sector. So take a dive ..read more

"That dogma was necessary — without it the people who have built this ecosystem into what it is today wouldn’t have had the motivation to do so. Without that dogma, those people would not have had customers and users to build anything for in the first place. It was the foundation of everything we have around us today. Now the inevitable is happening: the foundation is cracking." ~ Shinobi Guy Swan delves into an article by Shinobi from Bitcoin Magazine, exploring the complexities of ideological dogmas within the Bitcoin community. The episode questions the sustainability of foundational belie ..read more

"On the face of it, Bitcoin’s existence seems to violate Mises’s theorem, unless a preceding non-monetary use can be demonstrated. That is, Bitcoin would have to be first valued for its direct utility before it could hold indirect exchange value. So have the criteria been met, or does Bitcoin violate the theorem?" - Emile Phaneuf You've inevitably come across the argument that Bitcoin violates Mises's Regression Theorem if you've been in bitcoin long enough, but is this really true? And with the obvious and undeniable emergence of Bitcoin, what can this tell us about Mises's observation, and ..read more

"Hedgehog uses relative time locks. So that if they don't have to worry about closing that channel with a relative time lock, it's whenever you do close the channel, now you've got 2016 blocks to sweep the money using the pre-image. Otherwise I can sweep it after those 2016 blocks go by... And because it only uses relative time locks, it's much more delay tolerant... In the Lightning Network today, you've got hours to settle these things. And often if someone sends a zap to somebody and then they turn off their computer or turn off their phone and go to the supermarket or whatever, they come b ..read more

"It's going up forever, Laura." ~ Michael Saylor I know to many people that sounds crazy, and I can still see in my mind why it sounds crazy. Today, I'm going to make the argument for why it isn't crazy, but both natural and intuitive. Also, why it *doesn't* mean what you are probably picturing in your head. I'm going to make the case today, and I hope that you walk away realizing that this isn't unrealistic at all, but is the way it's *supposed to work,* that Bitcoin is, in fact, going up forever, Laura. Links to check out Fountain App (Link: https://www.fountain.fm/) Mises Caucus (Link ..read more

"People that are in the Western world and specifically in the United States, what they're realizing, whether they can say it this way or not, is you're watching the end of an empire. I said this for a long time, and it's not the empire is going to collapse. The empire is collapsing right now. We are in the midst of, and people say economic collapse, it's empire collapse, which means economic is part of it." ~ Jack Spirko In this episode I interview Jack Spirko, host of The Survival Podcast, delving into the intersection of self-reliance, Bitcoin, and navigating the complexities of modern soci ..read more

"We know the law is unconstitutional. FinCEN knows the law is unconstitutional. FinCEN knows we know the law is unconstitutional. And yet we're supposed to pretend like nothing happened and comply with an illegal law." ~ Jameson Lopp What do we do when a regulatory agency continues to enforce an illegal law against a judicial verdict? Jameson Lopp explores the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA), revealing how it mandates extensive reporting to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, compromising individual privacy and security under the guise of legal compliance. How does this act, despite be ..read more

"You have to decide how to move forward. You have to decide what game you want to play; how much responsibility you are willing to shoulder. Do you want to stay stuck in the machine? A machine that uses and abuses you? A machine that feeds itself by extracting and devouring your time, attention, and value? Or do you have the courage to take control of your wealth, health, thoughts, and speech?" ~ DerGigi Free speech is a non-negotiable foundation for society and human progress, as the open exchange of ideas allows us to productively clash perspectives and arrive at truth ..read more