The Data Behind the BIP-110 Fight | Renaud Cuny | BIS #208
Renaud Cuny joins the Bitcoin Infinity Show to talk about measuring the monetary health of the Bitcoin network through hard data, from the percentage of block space consumed by spam to the concentration of mining pools and hardware manufacturers. He walks through his Bitcoin Portal project, which scores decentralization and security across mining, block space, and node diversity, and explains why direction matters more than any single number. The conversation digs into BIP-110, the OP_RETURN debate,…
Bitcoin Core's Governance Problem | Secure Sovereign | Bitcoin Infinity Show #207
Josh, AKA Secure Sovereign, joins the Bitcoin Infinity Show to talk about Bitcoin Core governance, the case for alternative node implementations, and Bitcoin Commons, a new Rust implementation he says specifies and locks down Bitcoin consensus while making it far easier to fork and run your own node. Josh recovered a life-changing stack of Bitcoin he had held since 2010, then turned to analyzing Bitcoin Core as an informal oligarchy, running a full-chain analysis of BIP-110 across more than 900,000…
Why BIP-110 Will Win with Bitcoin Mechanic | Bitcoin Infinity Show #206
Bitcoin Mechanic joins the Bitcoin Infinity Show to talk about BIP-110, the minority soft fork now activating on hard mode, and why he believes node runners rather than miners ultimately control the network. Drawing on his front-row view of the 2017 block size wars, he breaks down the game theory that pushes miners toward enforcing new consensus rules, the UTXO bloat and OP_RETURN abuse that motivated the fork, and how Ocean, Datum, and hash rate renting are quietly redecentralizing Bitcoin mining. The…
The Praxeology of Privacy with Max Hillebrand | Bitcoin Infinity Show #205
Max Hillebrand joins the Bitcoin Infinity Show to talk about his new book The Praxeology of Privacy and why privacy sits at the foundation of sound money, self-custody, and the entire cypherpunk project. The conversation traces the prehistory of Bitcoin from David Chaum's anonymous eCash through Hal Finney's proof of work, explains how surveillance distorts prices the same way money printing does, and digs into the tools that make resistance cheap, including CoinJoin, the Lightning Network, and the new…
Bitcoin Around the World with Paco de la India | Bitcoin Infinity Show #204
Paco de la India joins the Bitcoin Infinity Show to talk about his Run with Bitcoin journey across 40 countries, the reality of Bitcoin adoption in the global South, and what he learned about freedom, circular economies, and money along the way. Knut and Paco dig into the BIP-110 spam debate, India's 2016 demonetization, why running different node software is not censorship, and how Bitcoin acts as the immune system of a free society. They also cover geopolitics, hyper-bitcoinization, self-custody,…
Bitcoin Core Has Been Compromised | Matthew Kratter | BIS #203
Matthew Kratter joins the Bitcoin Infinity Show to talk about the escalating fight against spam on Bitcoin, why he believes Bitcoin Core has been compromised, and how the pleb migration to Bitcoin Knots has gone from 1% to 25% of the network in under two years. Kratter walks through the case for BIP-110 as a temporary soft fork, explains why mining pool centralization is the structural problem underneath everything else, and shares his own setup for renting hashrate at industrial scale from home using…
Defending Bitcoin: Cybersecurity for the Monetary Grid | Luke de Wolf | BIS #202
Luke de Wolf joins the Bitcoin Infinity Show to talk about his upcoming book Defending Bitcoin: Industrial-Grade Cybersecurity for the Monetary Grid, the cybersecurity case for treating Bitcoin as critical infrastructure, and why arbitrary data on Bitcoin should be considered a textbook availability vulnerability. The conversation covers Luke's reversal on BIP-110, the governance concentration around Bitcoin Core, and why decentralized mining through Ocean, Datum, and Stratum V2 is essential for keeping…
The Case Against BIP-110 with Erik Aronesty | Bitcoin Infinity Show #201
Erik Aronesty joins the Bitcoin Infinity Show to talk about his role in BIP 148 and the User-Activated Soft Fork that reshaped the block size wars, and why he eventually traded his big-block stance for a small-block one rooted in bandwidth and node decentralization. He shares hard-earned lessons on Bitcoin mining economics, the long-term security budget question, and why he believes Bitcoin still needs protocol-level privacy through ideas like Mimblewimble alongside covenants like OPCTV for vaulting and…
Building Bitcoin Tools for Business with Pierre Corbin | Bitcoin Infinity Show #200
Pierre Corbin joins the Bitcoin Infinity Show to talk about why most corporate Bitcoin reserves might be paper Bitcoin, how AI is accelerating the collapse of fiat currencies, and why Bitcoin is the only asset built to survive a world where everything trends toward zero. They also dig into copyright in the internet age, Nostr as proof of authenticity, and how Pierre's company Flash is helping businesses build real Bitcoin treasuries through self-custody. Connect with Pierre: https://x.com/CierrePorbin…
Rent Hash Power & Mine Bitcoin From Home with Unhosted Marcellus | BIS #199
Unhosted Marcellus joins the Bitcoin Infinity Show to talk about how any Bitcoiner can now rent hash power for as little as $1 per day and run their own mining pool through Ocean's Datum Gateway. The conversation covers BIP 110 as a grassroots response to Bitcoin Core's controversial mempool policy changes, the game theory of soft fork activation, and why mining might be the final step in the Bitcoiner sovereignty journey that takes you from holding your keys to running your node to actually directing…
Announcing ProductionReady with Samson Mow & Jimmy Song | BIS #198
Samson Mow and Jimmy Song join the Bitcoin Infinity Show to talk about ProductionReady, their new nonprofit funding a conservative third Bitcoin node client designed to preserve Bitcoin's monetary properties and break Core's monopoly on the reference implementation. The conversation covers the dangers of developer-driven feature creep, the inflation bug that slipped past Core review, why multiple client implementations strengthen Bitcoin's decentralization, and the case for prioritizing sound money over…
What Institutions Get Wrong About Bitcoin with Ed Juline | BIS #197
Ed Juline joins the Bitcoin Infinity Show to talk about whether Bitcoin treasury companies are a necessary bridge to mass adoption or a dangerous recreation of fiat financial engineering on top of Bitcoin. Drawing on his experience as former Director of Bitcoin Advocacy at Strategy and years of organizing Bitcoin events, Ed explores the tension between self-custody principles and institutional onboarding, the case that orange pilling is over, and how the early majority can be kept honest as Bitcoin…