Closing the Loop
By John Vallis
Closing the LoopSep 08, 2022
#36 - Francis Pouliot: Bitcoin is a Life Raft
For our final episode of season three, we were excited to have Francis Pouliot join us for a discussion.
Francis is the founder and CEO of Bull Bitcoin, a popular 'non-custodial' bitcoin exchange and payment service in Canada. He has been heavily involved in the bitcoin industry since 2013, helping people understand and use bitcoin from the earliest days of Montreal's Bitcoin Embassy to Costa Rica's Bitcoin Jungle today.
In that time, he has accrued a wealth of knowledge and experience, which in addition to his uniquely principled approach to things, has made him a popular and respected voice in the bitcoin space.
Personally, I've always appreciated his reverence for the truth, his dedication to doing what he believes to be right, and the ideas, arguments, and products which have emerged from that approach. Including his company Bull Bitcoin, which, full disclosure, I'm a happy customer of.
Enjoy!
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Follow Francis and Bull:
- Twitter (Francis): @francispouliot_
- Twitter (Bull Bitcoin): @BullBitcoin_
- Website: bullbitcoin.com
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- Twitter: @johnkvallis & @Seetee_io
- Website: seetee.io
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#35 - Ray Youssef: Bitcoin is on the Right Side of History
In this episode of Closing The Loop, we’re honored to have Ray Youssef join us for a discussion.
Ray is the founder and CEO of Paxful, a popular peer-to-peer bitcoin exchange, which offers users over 350 different payment methods to choose from.
Paxful has placed a particular focus on what Ray refers to as the ‘Global South,’ where billions of unbanked or underbanked people are effectively cut-off from global markets and subject to numerous forms of financial repression.
In this conversation, Ray and I discuss how bitcoin and Paxful have helped to level the playing field for these people: by giving them greater access to global financial infrastructure and, in doing so, helping them to circumvent authoritarian regulations which seek to confiscate their wealth and limit their financial freedom.
As you’ll hear, Ray is extremely passionate about his work and takes his mission—providing everyone with the financial tools they need to build wealth and unleash their full potential—very seriously.
Enjoy!
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Follow Ray and Paxful:
- Twitter (Ray): @raypaxful
- Twitter (Paxful): @paxful
- Website: paxful.com
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- Twitter: @johnkvallis & @Seetee_io
- Website: seetee.io
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#34 - Patrick O'Sullivan: 'Bitcoin Makes Baseball Better' w/ The World's First Chief Bitcoin Officer
Our guest today is Patrick O’Sullivan, the world’s first 'Chief Bitcoin Officer', for the Australian Baseball League club, The Perth Heat.
In late 2021, Patrick convinced the organization to shift to a full 'bitcoin standard', and since then, they’ve been experimenting with all the ways in which they can leverage the benefits of bitcoin, to bring a higher-quality and more rewarding experience to players and spectators alike.
Recently, grounded in a firm belief in the merits and possibilities of the bitcoin-enabled 'value-for-value' philosophy, the team has launched what their calling 'sats4stats', where live or online spectators can send bitcoin payments directly to players, for whatever reason, in real-time!
Patrick and the whole crew at the Perth Heat not only believe that their club will reap substantial rewards by being first in pursuing this strategy, but also that their pioneering work will inspire others to do the same, and in time, completely revolutionize the world of spectator sports.
Enjoy!
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Follow Patrick and The Perth Heat:
- Twitter (Patrick): @CBO_21
- Twitter (Perth Heat): @PerthHeat
- Website: perthheat.com.au
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- Twitter: @johnkvallis & @Seetee_io
- Website: seetee.io
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#33 - Matt Hill: The Era of 'Sovereign Computing' is Here
Today's guest is Matt Hill, co-founder and CEO of Start9 Labs, a leading pioneer in what he calls ‘Sovereign Computing.’
In today’s world, many have become accustomed to using third-party platforms to interact online, host their data, and much else, but as the saying goes, ‘the cloud is just someone else’s computer.’
As a result of this, there is no true privacy, anyone can be censored, and data honeypots exist everywhere for dishonest or malicious actors to exploit.
Matt and his team are determined to reverse this concerning trend, by making it easy and affordable to run a personal private server, allowing any individual to take back control of their data, opt-out of corporate and state surveillance, and engage in their digital lives in a manner that is private, secure, and censorship-free.
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Follow Matt:
- Twitter: @_MattHill_
- Website: start9.com
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- Twitter: @johnkvallis & @Seetee_io
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#32 - Jeff Booth: Bitcoin is the Answer to a Broken System
Today’s guest is Jeff Booth, a serial technology entrepreneur, advisor and board member to multiple businesses and organizations, and the author of the very popular book, ‘The Price of Tomorrow: Why Deflation is the Key to an Abundant Future'.
Jeff is also a prolific speaker and advocate for bitcoin, educating people in all parts of the world, about the nature of the problems we all face, and how bitcoin is an essential tool for resolving them.
Finally, to further enhance his impact, Jeff recently founded ego death capital, a venture fund which invests in companies in the bitcoin ecosystem, thereby accelerating the transition to what he likes to call, ‘a world of greater truth, hope and abundance.’
Enjoy!
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Follow Jeff:
- Twitter: @JeffBooth
- Website: egodeath.capital
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- Twitter: @johnkvallis & @Seetee_io
- Website: seetee.io
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#31 - Jason Les: Surviving and Thriving as a Publicly Traded Bitcoin Mining Company
Our guest today is Jason Les, CEO of Riot Blockchain.
Riot is one of the largest publicly traded bitcoin miners in the world, with a current hash rate capacity of 4.8EH/s, and an expected self-mining capacity of 12.6EH/s by Q1 2023.
The bitcoin mining industry is notoriously competitive, and that is especially the case right now in the fall of 2022, as a confluence of factors conspire to reveal which among the current operators are capable of weathering the storm.
As such, I thought now would be a perfect time to have Jason on to discuss his story, how he thinks about building successful bitcoin mining operations, as well as the broad and massive implications of this burgeoning new industry.
Enjoy!
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Follow Jason:
- Twitter: @JasonLes_
- Website: riotblockchain.com
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- Twitter: @johnkvallis & @Seetee_io
- Website: seetee.io
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#30 - Prince Filip of Serbia: The Merits of Monarchy, The Liberating Power of Bitcoin, and The History of the House of Karađorđević
Our guest today is Prince Filip Karađorđević, Hereditary Prince of Serbia and Yugoslavia, and Chief Strategy Officer of Jan 3, a digital infrastructure company focused on expanding access to bitcoin technology, and accelerating hyperbitcoinization.
We first met Prince Filip at the Miami Bitcoin Conference in 2022, and were struck by both his down-to-earth demeanor, as well as his passion and enthusiasm for bitcoin.
His family history is tremendously interesting, and Filip seems determined to follow in those footsteps, by using bitcoin, in conjunction with his other initiatives, to bring more freedom and prosperity to the people of Serbia, and those living around the world.
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Follow Prince Filip:
- Twitter: @PrincFilip1
- Website: jan3.com
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- Twitter: @johnkvallis & @Seetee_io
- Website: seetee.io
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#29 - Abubakar Nur Khalil: Building, Investing, and Training the Next Generation of Bitcoin Developers in Africa
This episode's guest is Abubakar Nur Khalil, a contributor to bitcoin core and co-founder of Qala, a non-profit focused on training the next generation of bitcoin and lightning developers in Africa.
He is also the CEO of Recursive Capital, a venture capital fund focused on funding African bitcoin startups. Finally, Abubakar is a founding member of B Trust, a non-profit funded by Jack Dorsey and Jay-Z, with the stated purpose of supporting the people and initiatives working to decentralize bitcoin development further.
Though still relatively young, Abubakar's accomplishments in the bitcoin space are substantial. His curiosity, dedication, and humility with which he approaches life shine through in his work and this discussion.
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Follow Abubakar:
- Twitter: @ihate1999
- Website: rcrsv.xyz
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- Twitter: @johnkvallis & @Seetee_io
- Website: seetee.io
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#28 - Brent Whitehead: The Giga Energy Story and Bitcoin as the Ultimate Incentive for Revolutionizing the Energy Industry
Today’s guest is Brent Whitehead, co-founder of Giga Energy, a company that builds, operates, and sells equipment for off-grid bitcoin mining operations.
The mobility, viability, and adaptability of bitcoin mining has in the last few years become recognized for the unique opportunities it represents, for capturing and monetizing stranded or 'waste' energy.
As a result, the industry is currently experiencing a boom, as market participants respond to the incentive which now exists to turn a liability, into an asset, which has a global market and operates 24/7/365.
This method of bitcoin mining is helping to increase resource efficiency, improve the economics of energy production and distribution, and helping to further decentralize and secure the bitcoin network.
It’s an incredibly exciting development in the bitcoin ecosystem and bound to have many other positive downstream effects, which is why I invited Brent on to share more about his experiences and perspective.
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Follow Brent:
- Twitter: @B_Whitehead21
- Website: gigaenergy.com
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- Twitter: @johnkvallis & @Seetee_io
- Website: seetee.io
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#27 - Jean Amiouny: Bringing Canadians into the 'Bitcoin Golden Age'
This episode's guest is Jean Amiouny, co-founder and CEO of Canadian bitcoin exchange, Shakepay.
Launched in 2015, Shakepay has become one of the most popular ways to buy bitcoin in Canada, with $7 billion in transaction volume and over one million Canadians signed up to the platform.
As you'll hear in this discussion, while their current focus is on making it as easy as possible for Canadians to accumulate bitcoin, they have much bigger aspirations of ultimately taking on the five big legacy banks in Canada, re-creating the financial system on top of bitcoin, and ushering in what they call the "bitcoin golden age."
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Follow Jean:
- Twitter: @aiouy
- Website: shakepay.com
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- Twitter: @johnkvallis & @Seetee_io
- Website: seetee.io
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#26 - Lyn Alden: Bitcoin is the Technological Solution We Need
Today's guest is Lyn Alden, founder of Lyn Alden Investment Strategy, board director of Swan Bitcoin, and advisor to ego death capital.
Lyn is one of the most highly regarded voices in finance today, both for her excellent commentary on the macroeconomic landscape as well as for her sober, analytical approach to understanding bitcoin. Lyn's ability to distill complex, multi-disciplinary topics into insights that anyone can comprehend has made her a favorite amongst expert investors and humble savers alike.
With all the recent developments in the bitcoin world, as well as the volatility and uncertainty in all financial markets, we thought it was a perfect time to have a chat with Lyn and get her perspective on what's going on.
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Follow Lyn:
- Twitter: @LynAldenContact
- Website: lynalden.com
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- Twitter: @johnkvallis & @Seetee_io
- Website: seetee.io
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#25 - Gigi: Bitcoin Offers Deep Stability
Welcome to Season 3 of Closing the Loop!
As has become tradition, Gigi, our friend and colleague here at Seetee, software engineer, and prolific writer in the bitcoin space, has joined us once again, to get this season kicked off.
In our conversation, we reflect on some of the guests and topics of Season 2, discuss our experiences at the Oslo Freedom Forum in Norway recently, and delve into some of the current events, developments, misunderstandings, and musings going on in 'bitcoin land' today.
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Follow Gigi:
- Twitter: @dergigi
- Website: dergigi.com
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- Twitter: @johnkvallis & @Seetee_io
- Website: seetee.io
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#24 - Leopoldo López: A Life-Long Struggle for Freedom in Venezuela
Our guest today is Leopoldo López, a democracy activist, former political prisoner of the Maduro government, and national coordinator of the 'Voluntad Popular' political party in Venezuela.
We recently met Leopoldo at the Oslo Freedom Forum in Norway and subsequently had the chance to spend some time with him and hear the harrowing story of his life-long fight for freedom in Venezuela.
We also spoke to him about Bitcoin, the ways in which it can and does support the cause of freedom, and the critical distinctions between it and all other 'cryptocurrencies.'
In our discussions, we came to greatly admire Leopoldo's character and found his genuine curiosity, humility, and questions about Bitcoin—something which was fairly new to him—to be very endearing. As a result, we thought it would be interesting to invite him on the show, to continue our discussion, and delve further into his fascinating and inspiring story.
"If we figure out ways in which more people have access to financial freedom, that will, in turn, increase the probabilities to have a free society."
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Follow Leopoldo:
- Twitter: @leopoldolopez
- Website: leopoldolopez.com
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- Twitter: @johnkvallis & @Seetee_io
- Website: seetee.io
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#23 - Bernard Parah: All-In on the Mission to Bring More Freedom to Africa w/ Bitcoin
For this episode, our guest is Bernard Parah. He is the founder and CEO of Bitnob, a Nigerian bitcoin exchange & financial services platform.
We met Bernard recently at the Oslo Freedom Forum in Norway, where we had the chance to hear his story firsthand. His unique perspective on bitcoin, the experience he has gathered when launching Bitnob, and the many fascinating stories he has to share about the challenges of being an entrepreneur in Nigeria make him a unique voice in the ecosystem.
Bernard's passion, purpose, and dedication to Bitcoin are as contagious as they are impressive, which is why we invited him to share his story on Closing the Loop. We hope that putting a spotlight on Bernard's work and his part of the world shows how empowering and essential Bitcoin truly is, especially in those parts of the world that do not share our financial privilege.
"Bitcoin treats everyone as equal," to quote Bernard. "It won't fix everything, but it helps tilt the scale."
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Follow Bernard:
- Twitter: @bernard_parah
- Website: bitnob.com
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- Twitter: @johnkvallis & @Seetee_io
- Website: seetee.io
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#22 - Shaun Connell: Bitcoin Mining is the 'Holy Grail' for Power Grids
This episode's guest is Shaun Connell, Executive Vice President of Power at Lancium.
Lancium develops technologies and builds infrastructure to improve the economic efficiency of power production, balance and stabilize the power grid, and improve the viability of renewable energy resources.
Shaun has a wealth of experience in energy markets, in particular in energy trading and risk management, and through his work at Lancium, he is becoming a leading expert in the rapidly occurring integration of bitcoin mining and traditional energy infrastructure.
We cover a lot of ground in this discussion, and as usual, we could've talked with Shaun for another two hours about all the incredibly fascinating implications of these converging industries. For now, we'll have to save that for part two—sometime in the future.
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Follow Shaun:
- Twitter: @ShaunEnergy
- Website: lancium.com
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- Twitter: @johnkvallis & @Seetee_io
- Website: seetee.io
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#21 - Farida Nabourema: Bitcoin and the Multi-Generational Struggle for Democracy & Human Rights in Togo
This episode's guest is Farida Nabourema, a social activist and writer, who since being a teenager, has been a fearless advocate for democracy and human rights in her native Togo.
We met Farida recently at the Oslo Freedom Forum in Norway and were intrigued by her story, her work, and the ways in which she's been educating her followers and community about the benefits of Bitcoin.
This conversation was not only illuminating with regards to the nature and degree of oppression in Togo (and elsewhere), but it also left us incredibly impressed by the courage, conviction, and wisdom of this young woman, and grateful for her work in the cause for freedom.
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Follow Farida:
- Twitter: @Farida_N
- Website: nabourema.com
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- Twitter: @johnkvallis & @Seetee_io
- Website: seetee.io
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#20 - Bob Burnett: 'Wild Mining' & Bringing the Market to the Molecule
This episode's guest is Bob Burnett, chairman and CEO at Barefoot mining.
Barefoot focuses primarily on what they call 'wild mining,' or small-to-mid scale bitcoin mining operations, using independent or off-grid energy sources.
Their approach is not only contributing to the monetization of remote or stranded energy resources, which otherwise likely would have remained unproductive, but it's also helping to diversify and decentralize the bitcoin mining ecosystem, making it more resilient to various potential risks and attacks.
Bob is another great example of someone who was reinvigorated with purpose as a result of learning about bitcoin, and I'm grateful for the work he and the team are doing to protect the network and contribute to the innovation taking place in the rapidly co-evolving bitcoin mining and energy industries.
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Follow Bob:
- Twitter: @boomer_btc
- Website: barefootmining.com
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- Twitter: @johnkvallis & @Seetee_io
- Website: seetee.io
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#19 - Alex Leishman: The Future of Bitcoin Financial Services
This episode's guest is Alex Leishman, founder & CEO of River Financial.
River is a bitcoin-native financial services firm that offers bitcoin acquisition and management products for individuals, as well as a variety of institutions and high-net-worth investors, through their private client services division. They've also recently begun offering a bitcoin-mining product, which allows their clients to own their own mining hardware and establish regular bitcoin-denominated income, or what's become known as "sats flow," while River takes care of all the work to make it happen.
In this show, Alex and John have a wide-ranging discussion about the growth of River, the details of their new mining offering, their approach to the lightning network and possible future applications, the notion of social progress, and how we should be thinking about it, becoming a Kardashev Type 2 civilization, and much more.
River represents what is still a very small initial cohort of new financial services companies, which are focussing exclusively on bitcoin, and building out a suite of products and services that allow people to unlock more of its enormous potential.
In my opinion, Alex and the team at River have built a brand imbued with the bitcoin ethos, which is likely why they are so well respected in the industry, and why it was such a pleasure and an honor for me to have a discussion with him today.
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- Twitter: @johnkvallis & @Seetee_io
- Website: seetee.io
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#18 - Grant Gilliam: Venture Investing in the Bitcoin-Native Ecosystem w/ Ten31
This episode's guest is Grant Gilliam, co-founder and managing partner of Ten 31.
Ten31 is a venture capital firm that invests in leading bitcoin-native companies. In addition to that, Ten31 supports and invests in various free and open-source software projects in the Bitcoin ecosystem to help build out the infrastructure necessary for a hyperbitcoinized future.
Grant comes from a traditional private equity background and has brought a ton of high-level experience with him to this new endeavor. While Grant and the team at Ten31 recognize the enormous opportunity that investing in early-stage bitcoin-only companies represents, they're also aware of the necessity to think differently about investing when doing so in a bitcoin-denominated world.
In our opinion, it is their willingness to accelerate the flywheel while aligning deeply with the bitcoin ethos that will lead to their continued long-term success. We are looking forward to supporting the bitcoin-only ecosystem along with Ten31.
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Follow Grant:
- Twitter: @GRANTGILLIAMBTC
- Website: Ten31
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- Twitter: @johnkvallis & @Seetee_io
- Website: seetee.io
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#17 - Alex Gladstein: Why 'The Money' is the Biggest Missing Piece in the Fight for Human Rights
Our guest today is Alex Gladstein. Alex is the Vice President of Strategy for the Oslo Freedom Forum, and the Chief Strategy Officer of the Human Rights Foundation, a non-partisan, non-profit organization that promotes and protects human rights globally.
In recent years, Alex has placed particular focus and emphasis on speaking, writing, and educating about bitcoin. In particular, the powerful potential it has to serve as a means for people the world over to protect themselves from various forms of oppression, and establish greater freedom in their lives.
His efforts, and in particular his prolific and popular writing, has helped many to appreciate the faults in the current global monetary system, the broad yet under-recognized consequences of them, and the salutary role which bitcoin may play in their resolution.
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Follow Alex:
- Twitter: @gladstein
- Website: HRF / OFF
- Articles
- Book
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- Twitter: @johnkvallis & @Seetee_io
- Website: seetee.io
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#16 - Keyan Kousha: Using Bitcoin to Foster 'Natural Communities' Online w/ Stacker News
This episode's guest is Keyan Kousha, founder of Stacker News.
Stacker News is a user-generated, feed-style news platform, modeled after Hacker News, but with the important distinction of having natively-integrated bitcoin lightning payments, as a means of fostering more natural communities (think less spam and antisocial behavior), cultivating high-signal bitcoin content, and providing a better user experience overall.
Stacker News is still in the very early days of its development, but it's a great showcase of how bitcoin can be used to improve upon an existing model, and in doing so, explore how improved incentives might influence media publishing, monetization, and moderation.
Keyan is a prime example of someone who caught the bitcoin bug, and just couldn't resist getting involved. The result is a product built with and for bitcoiners, and it was great to have him on the show to explain more about his motivations and ambitions.
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Follow Keyan:
- Twitter: @k00bideh
- Website: stacker.news
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- Twitter: @johnkvallis & @Seetee_io
- Website: seetee.io
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#15 - Oscar Merry: Building the Value4Value Infrastructure
This episode's guest is Oscar Merry, co-founder of Fountain, a popular Podcasting 2.0 app for sharing clips of your favorite podcast segments. The app is also value4value enabled, which means that it allows you to support your favorite show directly, by streaming and boosting sats.
As you may have noticed, we at Seetee are big advocates of the emerging bitcoin lightning-enabled value4value model. We believe that this model is the future of free expression and digital media monetization, and so we love to see other teams working hard to build it into reality.
With each of our shows, all the sats that are streamed or boosted by our listeners—thank you, by the way—are divided between everyone involved in the show, including John, our sound producer, our guests, and sometimes others. Most often our guests opt to have their stream directed to charities and other non-profit organizations, such as the HRF.
For this episode, Oscar is directing his stream to a bitcoin fund that he and his team has set up. The sats in this fund are donated to new users who do not yet hold any bitcoin but are interested in exploring the world of lightning and streaming sats. Thus, if you choose to give value back while listening to this episode, know that you are not only helping to onboard new bitcoiners, but also reducing the friction of getting started in the value4value ecosystem.
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Follow Oscar:
- Twitter: @MerryOscar
- Website: fountain.fm
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- Twitter: @johnkvallis & @Seetee_io
- Website: seetee.io
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Sats Streamed to:
- Fountain Onboarding Fund
#14 - Rodolfo Novak: A Decade of Bitcoin Entrepreneurship
This episode's guest is Rodolfo Novak, co-founder and CEO of Coinkite, a popular bitcoin hardware manufacturing business, which has produced such classic products as the COLDCARD hardware wallet, the OPENDIME, and the BLOCKCLOCK MINI (to ensure one never loses track of Moscow time :p).
Rodolfo has been an entrepreneur in the bitcoin space for over a decade and has a ton of unique insights regarding building a business in the space, as well as on bitcoin's history and emergence as a cultural phenomenon.
It's apparent that the 'bitcoin ethos' permeates how he and the Coinkite team operate their business, and as such it's great to see how well their efforts have been received by bitcoiners the world over.
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Follow Rodolfo:
- Twitter: @nvk
- Website: coinkite.com
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- Twitter: @johnkvallis & @Seetee_io
- Website: seetee.io
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Sats Streamed to:
#13 - Gigi: The Future of Value
For our first episode of the year and season, we thought it would be fun to bring Gigi back on for a discussion about what the team has been working on, highlights and developments from Season 1, some thoughts around the evolution of the value4value model, and our focus for the upcoming year.
Thanks to everyone involved, the incredible guests we had on for discussions, and all the people who have supported this show and the wider Bitcoin ecosystem.
Here's to another great year ahead, as we continue building towards hyperbitcoinization.
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Follow Gigi:
- Twitter: @dergigi
- Website: dergigi.com
- Books: 21 Lessons, 21 Ways
Follow John & Seetee:
- Twitter: @johnkvallis & @Seetee_io
- Website: seetee.io
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#12 - Cory Klippsten: Building a Bitcoin Company for Bitcoiners, by Bitcoiners
This episode's guest is Cory Klippsten, founder and CEO of Swan Bitcoin, a popular US-based service for buying bitcoin.
Swan began as a way to make it easy for people to dollar cost average their bitcoin buys, automating them on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. Only bitcoin, and only buying. There is no option to sell with Swan — a not-so-subtle suggestion about how people should be engaging this asset.
Swan is a great example of a company that benefited tremendously from hiring individuals that have been active and outspoken within the bitcoin space. Their team, along with their focus on educational content, shows the importance of education and aligning one's brand with the Bitcoin ethos. Swan is not only educating prospective customers but also contributing to the resources available to everyone seeking to understand Bitcoin better.
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Follow Cory:
- Twitter: @coryklippsten
- Website: swanbitcoin.com
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- Twitter: @johnkvallis & @Seetee_io
- Website: seetee.io
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#11 - Steve Barbour: The Solution Is to Plug in More ASICs
For this episode, our guest is Steve Barbour, founder and CEO of Upstream Data.
Since 2017, Upstream Data has been pioneering solutions to capture methane emissions in the upstream oil and gas industry. Steve and his team monetize the energy at the source with mobile bitcoin-mining rigs.
Steve's ingenuity and success have caused many to begin thinking "outside the box" when it comes to potential energy sources for powering the Bitcoin network. This novel way of approaching things has spawned a burgeoning industry for taking wasted, isolated, unused, or underused energy resources, and turning them into sats for profit.
Steve is a highly regarded entrepreneur in the bitcoin space who is known for his frank style of communication and the honesty and integrity with which he conducts himself and his business.
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Follow Steve:
- Twitter: @SGBarbour
- Website: upstreamdata.ca
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- Twitter: @johnkvallis & @Seetee_io
- Website: seetee.io
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#10 - David Bailey: Celebrating Bitcoin Culture
This episode's guest is David Bailey, CEO of BTC Inc., the company behind Bitcoin Magazine, The Bitcoin Conference, and several other brands in the Bitcoin ecosystem.
Due to his involvement in Bitcoin since 2013, David has a ton of interesting insights and anecdotes to tell. Not only about the early days of Bitcoin and how things have evolved and progressed, but also personal stories about big successes, painful setbacks, and how he and his team navigate this emerging phenomenon and bring value to others.
Today, David and his stellar team of hardcore bitcoiners are hitting their stride, pumping out a ton of unique content, and helping to facilitate the convergence and celebration of the culture emerging around bitcoin.
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Follow David:
- Twitter: @DavidFBailey
- Website: b.tc
Follow John & Seetee:
- Twitter: @johnkvallis & @Seetee_io
- Website: seetee.io
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#09 - Adam Curry: Can't Stop the Signal
Today's guest is legendary broadcaster turned podcaster Adam Curry.
Adam has had an extremely rich, unique, and interesting career in media.
What began as pirate radio in Europe during his teens led to becoming a popular MTV VJ as well as several entrepreneurial ventures in the early days of the internet. Later on, he was one of the first to use and popularize the new medium of podcasting, defining in part what podcasting is and how it is best understood.
Since that time, Adam has been a strong advocate for the value for value model of content publishing, whereby fans and listeners contribute what they believe the content is worth, rather than relying on potentially censorious advertisers.
Most recently, these efforts have been made far more frictionless than ever before, with the advent of bitcoin's lightning network, and Adam has been instrumental in popularizing - and contributing to the development of - the possibilities for immediate and virtually free streaming payments.
As a result, Adam has once again become one of the primary forces in pushing a new publishing and communications model forward, which prioritizes freedom of expression, and fosters a more direct and honest relationship between creator and audience.
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Follow Adam:
- Mastodon: @adam
- Twitter: @adamcurry
- Podcast Index: podcastindex.org
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- Twitter: @johnkvallis & @Seetee_io
- Website: seetee.io
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#08 - Preston Pysh: A Once in a Millennium Opportunity
Today's guest is Preston Pysh, co-creator of The Investor's Podcast Network, one of the top global podcast brands for financial education.
While his podcast network covers the goings-on in finance, investing, and economics broadly, Preston has more recently focused exclusively on Bitcoin. He is now hosting a weekly discussion with the top entrepreneurs, authors, and investors in this rapidly growing ecosystem.
Preston is highly respected amongst his peers for his thoughtful, articulate, and insightful takes on the complex dynamics of the global economy and investing landscape and the impact that the emergence of bitcoin is having on them.
Preston and John have spoken on a number of occasions, and it's always a pleasure to catch up with him, to hear how he is currently thinking about things and what is currently captivating him most.
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Follow Preston:
- Twitter: @PrestonPysh
- Website: theinvestorspodcast.com
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- Twitter: @johnkvallis & @Seetee_io
- Website: seetee.io
Use Podcasting 2.0:
#07 - Dhruv Bansal: Bitcoin-Native Financial Services w/ Unchained Capital
Today's guest is Dhruv Bansal, co-founder and CSO at Unchained Capital. Unchained is a bitcoin-native financial services company that builds products to help individuals and organizations to better custody and hodl their bitcoin.
Crucial to this is their focus on collaborative custody using multisig, which allows them to offer robust key management solutions, transparent bitcoin collateralized loans, retirement and inheritance planning, and likely much more in the future.
Unchained has built a great open-source tool called Caravan, which not only supports their product offering but makes valuable new ways of managing and using bitcoin available to everyone.
Dhruv is also a highly-regarded author in the bitcoin space, having written a fascinating 3-part series called Bitcoin Astronomy, which we explored in some capacity in this conversation.
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Follow Dhruv & Unchained:
- Twitter: @dhruvbansal & @unchainedcap
- Website: unchained.com
Follow John & Seetee:
- Twitter: @johnkvallis & @Seetee_io
- Website: seetee.io
Use Podcasting 2.0:
#06 - Whit Gibbs: Now Everyone Can Mine Bitcoin
Today's guest is Whit Gibbs, co-founder, and CEO of Compass Mining.
According to their website, "Compass is a Bitcoin-first company, on a mission to support the decentralized growth of hashrate and strengthen network security, by helping more people learn, explore and mine Bitcoin."
In the last couple of years, interest in bitcoin mining has seemingly exploded as the industry has developed and as more and more people begin to understand just how diverse its impact will be and the opportunity that it therefore represents.
Additionally, many individuals are beginning to get involved, not just because of the financial incentives but also because of a desire to contribute to the further decentralization and security of the bitcoin network.
Whit and his team have obviously struck a nerve with the market, and you really get the sense that they are developing a platform that will create many more opportunities in the not-so-distant future.
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Follow Whit & Compass Mining:
- Twitter: @BitcoinBroski
- Website: compassmining.io
Follow John & Seetee:
- Twitter: @johnkvallis & @Seetee_io
- Website: seetee.io
Use Podcasting 2.0:
#05 - Roy Sheinfeld: The Interface of the Peer to Peer Lightning Economy w/ Breez
Today's guest on Closing the Loop is Roy Sheinfeld. Roy is the CEO and Co-Founder of Breez, a mobile app that aspires to be 'The interface of the peer to peer lightning economy.'
Roy and his team have taken a nascent, though still largely intimidating technology and abstracted away much of the complexity so that the average user can begin to interact with it and leverage the tremendous value which the lightning network increasingly represents.
Podcasting 2.0, and the value for value model, are important focuses for us here at Closing the Loop, and Breez has been instrumental at making it easy for users to engage this emerging method of content consumption, and for that, we're very grateful.
For full disclosure, Seetee has been so impressed by what Roy and his team are doing that we've recently made an investment in Breez to facilitate the continuation of their amazing work.
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Follow Roy & Breez:
- Medium: Roy Sheinfeld
- Twitter: @Breez_Tech
- Website: breez.technology
Follow John & Seetee:
- Twitter: @johnkvallis & @Seetee_io
- Website: seetee.io
Use Podcasting 2.0:
#04 - Daniel Buchner: Decentralized Identity on Bitcoin w/ Microsoft's ION
Today's guest on Closing the Loop is Daniel Buchner. Daniel is the Senior Product Manager for Decentralized Identity at Microsoft, which in March of 2021 culminated in the launch of ION.
ION is an open, public, permissionless Layer 2 Decentralized Identifier network that runs atop the Bitcoin timechain.
As life becomes increasingly digital and concerns around privacy and control of personal data become increasingly important, we thought it would be interesting to speak with Daniel to see how he and the team at ION are leveraging bitcoin's unique attributes to build solutions that put control of data back where it belongs - in the hands of each individual.
If you're listening to this show on a podcasting 2.0 app, thank you for supporting the emerging value for value publishing model. By using one of these apps, you'll be donating to the Human Rights Foundation, as Daniel has graciously directed his streaming sats to the HRF.
If you have any feedback on the show or have any suggestions for future guests, please feel free to reach out and let us know.
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Follow Daniel & Project ION:
- Twitter: @csuwildcat
- Website: identity.foundation/ion
Follow John & Seetee:
- Twitter: @johnkvallis & @Seetee_io
- Website: seetee.io
Use Podcasting 2.0:
#03 - Harry Sudock: Bitcoin Mining at GRIID, the Evolution of Energy Production, and Human Flourishing
Today's guest is Harry Sudock, VP of Strategy at GRIID, a company that procures low-cost, renewable energy to build, manage, and operate a growing portfolio of vertically-integrated bitcoin mining facilities.
Harry is incredibly passionate and knowledgeable about the bitcoin mining industry and extremely dedicated to the cause of Bitcoin generally.
John and Harry discuss the mining ecosystem, the impact he believes it will have on energy companies and markets, and what the implications may be for humanity more broadly.
We would like to invite you to listen to this episode on one of the many Podcasting 2.0 apps that are currently available. Closing the Loop is dedicated to advancing technologies that promote individual sovereignty, and building means of censorship-resistant communications and publishing is a critical component of that. By using a podcasting 2.0 app like Breez Wallet or Sphinx Chat, you stream sats directly to the contributors of this show, in amounts you determine, with no middle man.
For this show, Harry has chosen to opt for a kind of 'reverse sponsorship' by directing his stream of sats to the Human Rights Foundation. As a result, by listening to this podcast in a podcasting 2.0 app, you'll not only be learning about the transformational potential of bitcoin mining, but you'll also be supporting an organization that engages in the tireless work of championing the cause of freedom around the world.
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Follow Harry & GRIID:
- Twitter: @harry_sudock & @griid
- Website: griid.com
Follow John & Seetee:
- Twitter: @johnkvallis & @Seetee_io
- Website: seetee.io
Use Podcasting 2.0:
#02 - Paul Itoi: Stakwork, Sphinx Chat, and the Bitcoin Lightning Economy
Paul Itoi is the founder and CEO of Stakwork and has been a tech entrepreneur since the mid-nineties. In his spare time, Paul is also one of the driving forces behind the open-source, lightning-powered chat-app, called Sphinx. As Paul puts it, Stakwork pays the bills, but Sphinx just needed to exist, so they built it.
Unlike most people, Paul's entry into bitcoin was not out of an interest in the investment case or really anything to do with the 'base layer.' Instead, Paul was drawn in by his interest in the Lightning Network, a 2nd layer solution devised to enhance bitcoin's scalability. As you'll hear in this discussion, the Lightning Network greatly expands the utility of bitcoin, and in Paul's view, it will be the impetus for an explosion of innovation that will lead to bitcoin's adoption by billions of people.
One such innovation is the so-called Podcasting 2.0 model, where you can stream sats to the content creators you are listening to. You determine how much you stream, and you only pay for as long as you listen. It's known as the 'value 4 value' model, and it is one method currently being explored to develop a more direct relationship between creator and consumer, mitigating the influence of platform censorship and hopefully diminishing the reliance on the strictly ad-based models that dominate today.
If you'd like to give it a try and stream sats to Paul and John while listening to this episode, you can do so using the Sphinx Chat app, available for download on the App Store and on Desktop. Another great option for doing so is the Breez Wallet, which can be found in the App Store and on Google Play.
For a full list of other apps to explore, visit NewPodcastingApps.com. Thanks in advance for the support, and enjoy the show!
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Follow Paul & Stakwork:
- Twitter: @paulitoi
- Website: stakwork.com & sphinx.chat
Follow John & Seetee:
- Twitter: @johnkvallis & @Seetee_io
- Website: seetee.io
Use Podcasting 2.0:
#01 - Gigi: Introduction to Closing the Loop
For the inaugural episode of Closing the Loop, it is a genuine honor to introduce you to a highly respected bitcoiner and dear friend of mine, who goes by the name of Gigi.
Gigi is a father, educator, meme artist, author, philosopher, and someone who is fully committed to serving the bitcoin project and seeing it succeed.
He curates the website bitcoin-resources.com, where much of the top bitcoin content can be found for anyone seeking to get up to speed.
His first book, 21 Lessons, is a fascinating and rich exploration of the many things he has learned from falling down the proverbial 'bitcoin rabbit hole.'
His forthcoming book, 21 Ways, is a highly anticipated work from someone who has come to be considered amongst the most appreciated thinkers in the bitcoin space for the incredible depth of his understanding of the subject and his ability to articulate it in such a digestible yet profound way.
Gigi has committed his mind, body, and soul to bitcoin. As one of my closest friends, I couldn't be happier for the success his dedication and passion have manifested, culminating most recently in his position as lead developer at Seetee.
In this conversation, we discuss what makes Bitcoin so special and some of the motivations behind and plans for this podcast series.
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Follow Gigi:
- Twitter: @dergigi
- Website: dergigi.com
Follow John & Seetee:
- Twitter: @johnkvallis & @Seetee_io
- Website: seetee.io
Use Podcasting 2.0: