Vlad
Vlad, Bitcoin Takeover Podcast

Your Bitcoin influencer’s influencer. Post-maximalist. Now a privacy guy too!

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npub12qz56plzehejkyp4waaannmnny4y4c30j8q55a3wlk49haslga2snypdx8

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nprofile1qqs9qp2dql3vmuetzq6hw77eeaeej2j2ughers22wch0m2jm7c05w4gpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dsq37amnwvaz7tmjv4kxz7fn9ehhqetwwe5kuefwvdhj7anfvd6x7uspr4mhxue69uhkummnw3ez6ur4vgh8wetvd3hhyer9wghxuet5qyg8wumn8ghj7mn0wd68ytnhd9hx2qgswaehxw309ahx7um5wghxcctwvs3q08gg

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relay.damus.io

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npub12qz56plzehejkyp4waaannmnny4y4c30j8q55a3wlk49haslga2snypdx8

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Last Notes

2026-07-21 14:51:55 UTC

My interview with Perry E. Metzger is finally happening today
starting from 2 PM EST / 8 PM CET
Perry is the creator of the Metzdowd cryptography mailing list, where Satoshi first posted the Bitcoin whitepaper in 2008
He is also interested in open source AI, cypherpunk tech, and all sorts of cryptography use cases
Make sure you tune in, this one is for the history books!
https://image.nostr.build/f002b9065ea7884ddd0e3dc21e9ad7ab484f16da3d356d1de67e5bdebbc0481c.jpg

2026-07-21 13:27:41 UTC

Was thinking of a metaphor about blockchains and girlfriends
Bitcoin is this prude girl who blushes & gets overwhelmed when you touch her lap in church, only accepts missionary position, and obviously refuses to scale for every boy in town.
Ethereum is this dirty girl who does everything. And I mean EVERYTHING, with everyone… for the right price. The biggest problem is that she also doesn’t scale: she’s limited by the number of holes. Can get creative and try to find workarounds, but most of them involve searching for equally dirty lookalikes. Very exciting when you switch from Bitcoin, but you’re very likely to catch some infection.
Zcash is the girl who’s always vague. Reliable, always shows up. But you never know what she really thinks, you have no idea what she does for a living and whether she’s faithful or cheats on you. As soon as the date is over, she vanishes so you cannot follow her around. Has no problem showing up at your place, but you don’t know where she lives.
Monero is the World of Warcraft girlfriend. Only exists online, is always there for your guild raids and always available for virtual sex. However, you’re not sure if the person behind the account is truly a girl or some sick dude. As a matter of fact, it might as well be a bot. But whatever she/he/it is, you’re always having a good time. If you’re a junkie, he/she/it can also recommend someone who’s selling what you’re after, with absolute discretion.

2026-07-20 21:30:09 UTC

- reply

Layer 2s without unilateral exit are banks.
Liquid is a bank.
Fedimint is a bank.
Ark is a sophisticated bank too.
We used to make fun of Ethereum L2s for being glorified multisigs. Well, the Bitcoin L2s are even less cypherpunk.

2026-07-19 23:02:25 UTC

Imagine being Messi
Arguably the greatest football player of all time
The most decorated player, winner of every title and championship
About to retire in glory after defeating the final boss: Spain, the country that trained you and taught you everything you know about football
The best possible streak and story arc is about to unfold
… and then a hothead team mate named Enzo Fernandez gets 2 yellow cards, gets eliminated and leaves your team in numeric disadvantage for 30 minutes
Your shot at legendary status, your opportunity to become the undisputed god of the sport, ruined by a guy who enjoyed playing dirty and arguing with the referee

2026-07-19 17:02:56 UTC

The next couple of weeks will be amazing for Bitcoin Takeover podcast
Got some bangers lined up
Sorry for the delay, but I’ve been traveling and scheduling new interviews
and I do believe that you won’t find this type of content on any other show 🙃
https://image.nostr.build/6470104f2d79c4ac3cda738d972b53aaacbd34a6763426b08d959a96f4906fd3.jpg

2026-07-19 12:10:05 UTC

For the record, I don’t view the Bitcoin whitepaper as some kind of religious book that must be followed strictly
But I do think that the whitepaper is aspirational: it explains why this money system was created and what it ought to accomplish
The “how” part can change when better tech emerges. But the goal was never to create an institutional asset, a Wall Street tech stock, or a “store of value”
Bitcoin is payments tech. And if the original chain does not pursue the goal, then the forks will.

2026-07-19 10:43:49 UTC

“Read the whitepaper” triggers store of value preachers just as much as “read the constitution” triggers leftists in the US.

2026-07-18 18:47:09 UTC

Look, I’m sorry that lots of bitcoiners learned about how the network works from Saylor interviews and really bad podcasts
But narratives and metaphors always break when they get confronted by the technical reality
My podcast can definitely improve your understanding - not because I am some kind of my expert, but because I mostly interview guys who are much smarter than me
Learn from multiple sources, listen to conflicting opinions, constantly search for the truth, and build your own individual views to the point where other people follow you and consider you a valuable contributor.
This is how you win. This was always the way. There has never been and never will be a yellow brick road in this world: not even Bitcoin can provide certainties and guarantees.
To a great extent, Bitcoin’s success has been a self-fulfilling prophecy: people put a lot of effort into making predictions come true. But it doesn’t mean that it will always work this way, as new challenges always emerge.
Constantly ask questions and seek new information to update your understanding. Otherwise, you become someone’s useful idiot – just a follower, or a “pleb”. And I want all of you to become so much more!

2026-07-18 18:46:51 UTC

- reply

Except that you are generalizing under a zero sum game assumption.

2026-07-18 13:21:06 UTC

One of my favorite cognitive dissonances:
1. shitcoins are worthless and going to zero
2. shitcoiners are somehow wealthier than puritan bitcoiners who virtue signal about sound money & digital alchemy

2026-07-18 01:37:30 UTC

With less than 1% of Bitcoin’s development budget
and a lot of hate that’s second only to BSV and Ripple
BCH is now so far ahead with development that Bitcoin devs study it to figure out how to soft fork some features to BTC
How is this even possible?
Firstly, I have been told that BCH is a dead shitcoin that only exists to fuel the vanity of Roger Ver and Jihan Wu. But it keeps shipping code while both Roger and Jihan moved on.
Secondly, hardcore Bitcoin devs who regularly speak on conference stages now take inspiration from CheckDataSig (which inspired Jeremy Rubin’s CheckTemplateVerify & CheckSigFromStack), OP_CAT, OP_MUL & all the cool introspection OP codes that already work on BCH.
Once again, these guys had 1% of the budget, but did a much better job than Blockstream with Elements/Liquid, MIT, and Chaincode. How is this possible?!
In a world where BTC is winning, this could never happen.

2026-07-17 23:52:47 UTC

- reply

Yeah, maybe

2026-07-17 23:52:35 UTC

There has never been a more fun time to be a shitcoiner

2026-07-17 20:34:53 UTC

BIP110 supporters: Blockstream took Epstein money, Andy Back was on the island
Also BIP110 supporters: Blockstream co-founder Luke is our lord and savior

2026-07-17 12:16:56 UTC

I’m starting to believe that all the VC money that went into Bitcoin development was wasted on purpose
to demoralize the community, normalize custodians, replace the cypherpunk spirit with compliance & greed
the conferences that promised us upgrades, from Scaling Bitcoin to BTC++, turned out to be a reassurance drug that keeps us hopeful for new stuff for which there is never consensus
the goalposts to activate a soft fork have moved to the same level as hard forks… even if the upgrades are backwards-compatible and optional
other chains that use Bitcoin’s tech (ZEC, LTC, BCH) were able to accomplish more with fewer resources and without copying Bitcoin’s homework: if anything, it’s the BTC devs who look at Zcash and BCH asking themselves how to bring those features home with soft forks that never get consensus
Blockstream, in spite of all the puritan virtue signaling, was beaten by the free market. Their research is behind anything happening in Ethereum or Zcash right now
The Lightning network, the totem of Bitcoin maximalism, is better optimized and more reliable on Decred (another Bitcoin codebase fork)
And next month, the Drivechains (BIP300) hard fork will mark the departure of another group of developers who truly followed the Bitcoin maximalist thesis of bringing everything to one network
On top of this stagnation, the BIP 444/110 debate has pushed even more developers away from Bitcoin. Rusty Russel, the champion of the Great Script Restoration, has left Bitcoin development. Others have pivoted to AI because their work is more appreciated in that field. And of course, we lost Gloria Zhao to one of the dumbest psyops in the project’s history
The looming Epstein taint is also taking its toll, with some users feeling disgusted by the people and ideas they have supported over the years. Top Bitcoin Core developers received Epstein money via MIT affiliation. Lightning Labs received grants from MIT too.
But in the meantime, MIT is shipping their CBDC pilot (Project Hamilton) which uses Bitcoin research. With or without Epstein, the authoritarians are advancing with their agenda to control & surveil.
Bitcoin cannot fight back because it’s neutered. At this point, it’s nothing but a tech stock that makes boomer investors feel trendy. The freedom money use cases went somewhere else.
Without a healthy dev culture, nothing will change. But now the gatekeeping isn’t enforced only by a bunch of devs who dislike any idea from outside of their circle. Now even the average pleb who runs a Raspberry Pi node will act as if every dev must explain to them the utility of everything: and if they don’t understand it, then it’s frowned upon and rejected.
This is no longer decentralization, it’s the most degenerate form of democracy where the dumbest and the poorest feel empowered to decide on matters they will never understand. SegWit and Taproot didn’t receive the same amount of scrutiny because they came from the right team. But people still wear “don’t trust, verify” t-shirts and LARP about sovereignty.
The best part about Bitcoin is that it’s still around and can change course sometime. But not while the gatekeepers and their dumber supporters are still around. Not while Saylorism is the dominant ideology. Maybe that only a painful bear market with sub $10k prices will save Bitcoin.

2026-07-17 01:59:51 UTC

Back in 2013 I was obsessed with Billy Joel’s music
Bought all his records on vinyl, listened to “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant” hundreds of times trying to learn it on piano, tried to find the deep meaning of “The Nylon Curtain”
But I kind of consumed my obsession and moved on. Until tonight, when I listened to Billy’s interview on Rick Beato’s YouTube channel. I remembered what an amazing songwriter he is and what a great taste he he has for melodies.
Needless to say, I’ve been listening to nothing but Billy Joel. Now that I’m older and have more experience with music, I appreciate the small details even more!

2026-07-16 17:08:18 UTC

I don’t even know a whole BCH
But of Bitcoin Cash turns out to become the dominant version of Bitcoin, I really wouldn’t mind
Because these guys are actually shipping improvements to Satoshi’s design instead of social engineering to normalize complacency
If they scale it, make it more expressive and capable of delivering all the features that maximalists used to pretend to want, the market participants will notice
The mission is much more important than the tool that accomplishes it. And right now the smartest Bitcoin devs are looking at the toolset that BCH already enabled, thinking of ways to soft fork it to BTC.
However, there’s no consensus for any of that. And at some point, everyone will get fed up and just switch to whatever works best with the smallest amount of tradeoffs.
BTC is trying to normalize banks (no unilateral exit), BCH doubles down on trust minimization via protocol upgrades. There isn’t much of a debate about which one is more cypherpunk. But the question is how will the miners, merchants & exchanges react to a situation where the users switch their preference.
Right now BCH can run a more reliable version of Lightning. It can do better ZK rollups. It can have vaults, drivechains, and all the cool stuff we like to pretend to want at Bitcoin conferences before hitting the consensus wall.
If a switch happens and I must watch it from the sidelines, I won’t have any regrets. I didn’t come here to join the 1% and fly in private jets. I couldn’t care less if my kids will be working class and must grind from the bottom. The greater mission of fixing the money is more important than my investment thesis or personal ambitions.

2026-07-15 23:38:06 UTC

- reply

Man, you’re speaking like a cult member. Take a step back and reassess.
It’s like you’re arguing that a Ford Fiesta can replace war tanks if used properly. Different optimizations for different environments, you cannot have it all.

2026-07-15 17:00:12 UTC

- reply

Look into Tachyon for Zcash

2026-07-15 16:59:42 UTC

While you were busy fighting about the size of OP_Return and the efficiency of data filters
Builders moved on to other chains to continue the mission to achieve unstoppable internet money
The damage is done, smart people moved on while 80 IQs get high on Adam Back replies
Super unfortunate, but the mission precedes the medium or the tool. And revolutions orchestrated by 80 IQs never end well.

2026-07-15 16:59:16 UTC

- reply

Wtf

2026-07-15 11:01:18 UTC

Bitcoin is computer software which enables people to trade random numbers with each other, assigning value to each string
No matter how you try to rationalize it as something else (money, gold, cash), it’s just an interesting homo sapiens experiment
Proof of work mining has no inherent value unless we believe it does. If there was any concept of valuable hashes, every other proof of work network would be proportionally valuable too. If energy expenditure would matter in determining price, we would be living in a Marxist lala land where digging up holes only to cover them back is valuable labor.
The scarcity is not set in stone, as every parameter can be changed if there is consensus among participants. Maybe the fact that you can fork Bitcoin indefinitely to create a new competing currency is a form of monetary inflation.
All of this is well known, but widely ignored by people who desperately want to get rich by making others buy in. Bitcoin’s competitive advantage as an internet currency is that you can send some of the letters and numbers to anyone running the same software.
Bitcoin is faster than bank settlements, usually cheaper than Western Union, more difficult to censor than bank transfers, very hard to confiscate from your wallet.
Everyone who is ostracized and discriminated by the banking system will find Bitcoin useful. That’s the target audience for users, not North Americans hustling their way to buy a Lambo.
But in spite of its qualities, Bitcoin is old tech that doesn’t accomplish its intended purpose in the best way. Zcash (Bitcoin codebase fork with privacy improvements) is much closer to the original vision. Monero now dominates marketplaces where Bitcoin first proved its usefulness. Litecoin is also a popular middle ground between Bitcoin and Zcash (not as secure, not as private, but cheap to use and fast). Heck, even Bitcoin Cash did a better job improving the network with OP codes that enable vaults, covenants, and trust minimized layer 2s.
If Bitcoin loses its appeal on markets and doesn’t keep up at the technical level either, it’s gonna get replaced. Because technology is meant to be useful, not the subject of worship. The window of opportunity to fight back against CBDCs is very short and Bitcoin is hardly eligible to compete in this category. Believing that CBDC users will swap into bitcoin to hedge against inflation is borderline delusional.
Thankfully, we have the hard forks that can correct the trajectory in which we are headed. This summer we’re gonna get a technology-oriented version of Bitcoin thanks to Paul’s Ecash.com fork. Builders will finally be able to prove what they’ve been working on using a live network with real incentives. Smart and creative people will finally have a place to flourish, while the midwits and the 80 IQ cult members will get free coins to sell. Everybody wins, as software development gets mixed with market development. As it should be.
Anyway, long rant. But it’s hard to feel optimistic about Bitcoin when you notice how much the community IQ has declined and how far the project has strayed from its original mission. Mother of psyops, be my MILF!

2026-07-14 23:03:11 UTC

“It’s fine that we didn’t scale the Bitcoin base layer because look, most users don’t care about self-custody and storing 12 words is too hard for them”
Dude, look at USDT on Tron. Most of Latin America, Africa & the Middle East uses it daily via non-custodial wallets.
Same tech as Bitcoin. Same UX. Actually scratch that, as the UX is much worse: users need to buy a freaking gas token that they hold or even stake in order to pay transaction fees.
Oh and the transaction fees usually hover around $3-$5. More expensive than Bitcoin, but still cheaper than Western Union. So these guys will happily pay.
So how come hundreds of millions of people know how to manage 12 words to use Trust wallet, Metamask or Solflare
And they manage a freaking gas token
But Bitcoin is somehow challenging to use?
Mother of psyops, be my MILF!

2026-07-13 23:36:28 UTC

- reply

Look at this recent example:
nevent1qqsrk6jx278kun5jhg78mnrce0vqrepsrfaq2tp8d2pjr9s85g0a7asqk0ud9

2026-07-13 23:36:08 UTC

- reply

I use it too, but it’s a far cry from what we were promised. And I am tired of pretending that it’s “fine”

2026-07-13 23:35:30 UTC

Bitcoiners on David Marcus in 2019: ahahahah you stupid boomer, you think the world will want your censorable Libra shitcoin with no privacy
Bitcoiners on David Marcus in 2026: thank you sir for saving the lightning network with your compliant, censorship-friendly & non-private solution

2026-07-13 21:40:13 UTC

You know that Lighting is not very good tech
When it was built since day 1 to be blockchain agnostic
With atomic swaps between chains being heavily advertised in the beginning
And a year of scrutiny & testing on Litecoin
Only for Litecoin to stop maintaining it
Decred is the only other chain that still supports Lightning
And Lightning on Bitcoin, in spite of all the hype and heavy marketing, has less than 0.023% of supply locked in channels and only works decently when heavily centralized (though there are failed transactions even between custodial wallets)
What a waste of time and resources! If only we didn’t put all eggs in this basket and encouraged the market participants to come up with the best designs for scaling solutions where self custody + unilateral exit are non-negotiable
But then again, I’m pretty sure that the companies supporting Bitcoin developed secretly hope nothing ever gets achieved so CBDCs and other centralized solutions can get adopted within this short window of opportunity
Tether on Tron is the best example of such a product. So successful even the most hardcore maxis are afraid to criticize
it due to various conflicts of interest
https://image.nostr.build/abec5de652156857be07cb34a79b4ad70b3e6122b4ef890ca9216afb9ef0f228.jpg

2026-07-13 21:22:41 UTC

I have so many AI bots in my replies that it becomes very difficult to engage in genuine conversations
I don’t know what is a good solution, but if this keeps on happening I might automate my Nostr too with an agent that’s trained on my writings 🥹

2026-07-13 00:13:10 UTC

The whole point of Bitcoin is self-custody
being able to hold your own keys
then send and receive transactions to/from anyone you want, without asking for permission
Ironically and definitely intentionally, self-custody is also limited technically and discouraged socially
Now we deal with custodians (aka banks) as if the system was designed to lead us down this path

2026-07-10 06:21:58 UTC

You know that Nostr is really useful tech
when the monero and bitcoin cash communities build their own clients to zap with their favorite coins
Sooner or later, all crypto communities will join Nostr and run relays to maintain censorship resistance

2026-07-09 22:27:17 UTC

The best answer to the question
“What do you think about BIP110?”
is “I don’t think about it”

2026-07-09 12:35:01 UTC

BIP110 ELI5:
A bunch of idiots who don’t understand how Bitcoin works
get together to use their feelings and emotions to fix Bitcoin

2026-07-09 09:28:10 UTC

Woke up feeling super excited about BIP110
My God, what a brilliant BIP
Such a genius team of proponents!
It’s helping Bitcoin work better as money
This means it adds scaling & fungibility
This is exactly what BIP110 does, right?
RIGHT?!

2026-07-06 13:11:48 UTC

My favorite part about doing the Bitcoin Takeover podcast is that I learn the story of Bitcoin from the perspective of people who were there since the early days
Well, today I will interview the creator & host of the Metzdowd cryptography mailing list – the place where Satoshi Nakamoto first announced Bitcoin on October 31st 2008
His name is Perry E. Metzger and he’s a fascinating individual, with interests ranging from cryptography to open source AI
If you like Bitcoin history and want to learn from someone who’s been into computers for 5 decades, tune in at 4 PM EST / 10 PM CET
The interview will be livestreamed here on Twitter, as well as on YouTube. Feel free to join the live chat and ask questions!
https://youtube.com/live/0_6P7-zUOb8?feature=share

2026-07-06 00:19:15 UTC

So when BIP110 fails to activate
Are we gonna welcome our Knots brothers back and act like nothing happened
or are they mentally deranged to the point that they’d rather be on a virtue signaling fork than admit that they were wrong?

2026-07-05 12:47:50 UTC

- reply

Bitcoin doesn’t care.

2026-07-05 12:47:19 UTC

In October 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto published the Bitcoin whitepaper on the Metzdowd cryptography mailing list
Tomorrow, I’ll interview Perry Metzger – the founder and host of the Metzdowd cryptography mailing list
4 PM EST / 10 PM CET
Join the livestream chat to ask questions!
https://image.nostr.build/6812846184c84c8f9676fa37c49f656e860b1c5912cd8482cda42703c2a1f89e.jpg

2026-07-01 13:26:45 UTC

There’s something new for you to discover on https://bitcoin-takeover.com
https://image.nostr.build/a3f834acf8513174a4fdda882f95dfe797bf6d722c4650558c57aeefcdd2a2f3.jpg

2026-07-01 01:05:37 UTC

During every bear market, Bitcoin had something technologically interesting that was being developed
These concepts are responsible for restoring faith in the future of the project
In 2011, the self custody experience improved with proper SPV wallets.
In 2013-2014 we got Zerocash (today’s Zcash), Counterparty and Omni (the grandfathers of Ethereum & Solana), and the early iterations of sidechains
In 2018-2019 we witnessed the glory days of the Lightning network, which promised to make all altcoins obsolete
In 2022-2023 we saw the first use cases for Taproot and started thinking about CTV, programmability via BitVM, vaults, and scaling Bitcoin across time
But for 2026-2027, we have nothing going on. Some BitVM projects that aren’t getting any traction due to the broken user culture, infighting due to filtering wet dreams, a lot of virtue signaling from people who don’t understand how Bitcoin works, nothing productive or remotely interesting.
The research and development moved to other chains or else pivoted to AI. The smartest people are leaving, or else creating hard forks like Ecash.
Only the most naive or perverse (as in sheep and wolves) seem to be sticking to the BTC only thesis, as regulators and politicians finally caught up with how the tech works and are ready to capture it.
Bitcoin doesn’t die when the price goes to 0. It dies when it no longer becomes useful as unstoppable internet money, as the primary use case is speculation.

2026-06-30 17:41:39 UTC

Bitcoin Fork Summer
BIP 410 gets activated (110+300)
63 million bitcoins will exist
42 million will get airdropped to HODLers
Everyone gets the technology they want

2026-06-30 10:36:03 UTC

Tomorrow I will be interviewing @npub1pu5…pn0a
Probably the first fellow Romanian I’ve ever had on my podcast
We’ll talk about Bitcoin history, his research on the first ever transaction & why satoshis don’t exist
8 PM CET / 2 PM EST
Don’t miss it!
https://image.nostr.build/f5d1ea6105bbc1d5e9dbec0e2e2bea982b14de256b7a9d560a4d70408355f445.png

2026-06-28 21:07:15 UTC

Bitconnect: takes your money, buys bitcoin, pays 1% daily interest to token holders. Trading bot makes promises no downside.
STRC: takes your money, buys bitcoin, pays 11.5% annual interest to investors. Saylor’s ChatGPT slop promises no downside.

2026-06-28 01:06:43 UTC

- reply

Glad you liked it. Which part did you visit?

2026-06-28 01:03:23 UTC

Thinking of doing more on the road interviews
Talking about Bitcoin while driving to a nice place
Does anyone want to visit Romania this summer?
Or maybe I can come over and we rent a car
(though I prefer my couch on wheels)
https://image.nostr.build/3bbf1aaa34643f79a3a6e7026cb67342647f8a034fee84d1d70fe70c238dcbd6.jpg
https://image.nostr.build/60ab3f059df7e8e1e335393e11413cefd60b5ade4c588f518a8956892afac82b.jpg
https://image.nostr.build/109078632ff97fea1e821fc2328f8b401684fb8e0f9634d035944c716b4def3a.jpg
https://image.nostr.build/31453f12326d1357912532da86da4c29071f93746b52d8de82e2e6937b188c11.jpg
https://image.nostr.build/35f0280338fe8176b6f7db709882dde812b2927196ce0791c13789001238ee2d.jpg

2026-06-28 01:02:12 UTC

- reply

That’s depressing

2026-06-25 17:05:03 UTC

- reply

Nothing is too big to fail

2026-06-25 17:04:18 UTC

Learn more about BTC-backed loans from @npub1ruc…wjhl
as I’ve interviewed CEO Martin Matejka on my podcast!
https://www.youtube.com/live/iJeG7Uq_72k?is=YBVN6_C6WoBCHGvC

2026-06-24 17:30:51 UTC

- reply

But you can cripple the network until a worthy competitor emerges. See the case of Ethereum in 2017.

2026-06-24 17:29:39 UTC

hot take:
this whole “microstrategy is in bed with the us intelligence, has board members who are cia veterans, might be the shadow us strategic reserve” narrative
is one desperate effort to make STRC look like it’s too big to fail
so anyone shorting it will be afraid that he’s competing with the money printer
but ftx had even more political support, seemed too big to fail too… until it wasn’t

2026-06-24 03:36:39 UTC

BIP 110 is the democratic party
Core is the republican party
Once you see it this way, it makes a lot more sense

2026-06-24 03:36:16 UTC

- reply

I think the opposite, it takes vision and forward thinking to use a fork of BTC.

2026-06-24 03:35:22 UTC

- reply

That’s where you’re wrong. You’re dealing with computer software, not precious metals.

2026-06-22 21:26:59 UTC

Scarcity and limited supply are very different concepts
Gold is scarce, even though it has a hypothetically infinite supply that grows over time
Monero & Ethereum are scarce too, as the supply grows over time according to a predetermined schedule.
Bitcoin, Zcash, Litecoin & every other fork are limited in supply.
But then again, with internet money you can create millions of forks – of which maybe a handful will get traction and effectively generate inflation on the market.
So even Bitcoin can face diminishing network effects that eventually lead to inflation. Paul Sztorc’s Ecash might be one such example.

2026-06-19 23:14:47 UTC

This weekend’s podcast episode just dropped on Spotify & Apple Podcasts 🎧
The guest is @npub1gun…nudq, whose enthusiasm for vibe coding and just building things will most likely inspire you to create something too
We also talk about privacy & Bitcoin stuff. He receives Zcash for the first time too!
Unfortunately, the video recording appears to be compromised and I am not sure how to fix it. But I will try to put something together and livestream it next week.
Until then, enjoy listening to Grafton!
https://bitcoin-takeover.com/audio/?name=2026-06-20_s17_e29_grafton_clark_on_vibe_coding_privacy_bitcoin_culture.mp3
https://image.nostr.build/c4a9ce575d4a02f7f160e8d3b1fd8cd3693935d93ab2b3e1299b4546975b8e33.jpg

2026-06-18 19:38:01 UTC

bitcoin: a rich retiring cypherpunk to idealistic young fool “now you figure out how to make this work as money” system

2026-06-14 08:30:28 UTC

- reply

We will.

2026-06-14 08:30:19 UTC

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These wolves come in packs. Liquidate Saylor first, then the rest will follow.

2026-06-14 08:29:37 UTC

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Liquidate Saylor!

2026-06-14 08:29:25 UTC

- reply

Liquidate the motherfucker

2026-06-14 08:28:16 UTC

gm, what a beautiful day to liquidate saylor
cure the entire industry of its biggest cancer
bring back the cypherpunk spirit, kick out the grifter
so if you have any strc or mstr dump that shit
forget about your personal gains for a minute and make this motherfucker lose his shirt
teach everyone else watching to never fuck with this community because we’re built different

2026-06-13 22:19:16 UTC

the way to restore balance is simple:
liquidate michael saylor
swallow your pride, forget about the money you invested in mstr and strc
perform the sacrifice that brings the true generational wealth
by getting rid of this cancer
show everyone what happens if you mess with bitcoin
https://image.nostr.build/61724ff138ba2af23f2b1e449440377423852b3335a71da13f43bcb1788bf9a0.jpg

2026-06-13 12:42:05 UTC

gm if you hodl bitcoin you are michael seller’s exit liquidity
if you do sell your bitcoin, his company will most likely buy it to dump at higher prices
welcome to the real world, those closer to the money printer can screw you no matter what you do
luckily, the spirit of btc lives on in other coins that are actually useful and less of a political ponzi
enjoy the rest of your day!

2026-06-13 12:41:46 UTC

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Yes, they have nothing to reveal. ZK stands for zero knowledge

2026-06-12 13:21:37 UTC

Going live with Josh Swihart in 3 hours!
If you have any questions about Zcash, join the chat:
https://www.youtube.com/live/t9gYDG6jDSg?is=EXhRIZcHUs-8T-uY

2026-06-12 06:41:09 UTC

According to Feedspot
Bitcoin Takeover is the 7th best podcast in its category
With an average length of 148 minutes per episode 💪🏻
There is no second longest: triple digits or GTFO
Subscribe: https://bitcoin-takeover.com/audio
https://image.nostr.build/3de35f246fa8440bf3d477181753ee2201e38e185447c8871543abf5088fe760.jpg

2026-06-11 17:59:54 UTC

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Ditto

2026-06-11 17:59:10 UTC

whatever Saylor says, do the opposite
if he tells you to sell your kidney to buy more bitcoin, buy kidneys
if he tells you that the weather is sunny, wear a raincoat and bring an umbrella too
if he tells you that there is no second best, find the second best and buy it

2026-06-11 15:18:10 UTC

Bitcoin died when the Samourai developers got arrested
I used to hate those dickheads, but they kept a certain spirit alive… most of which migrated to Monero
Now the culture is complacent, compliant & predictably tame

2026-06-11 00:24:10 UTC

June update: 4363 downloads per episode
117838 Bitcoin Takeover podcast downloads in 2026
Top 3 most popular episodes:
1. S17 E1 with Bruce Fenton (15367)
2. S17 E21 with Paul Sztorc (8075)
3. S17 E26 with Steve Thurmond & Calin Culianu (6613)
Thank you all for listening!
https://image.nostr.build/dbcf9f70a2d84973747c11a1c908bdad83de386ede6e4c995cb909f323d5e5d4.jpg

2026-06-10 20:43:49 UTC

The Bitcoin maximalist thesis is the most principled & noble in all of finance:
“Let’s help this puritan money project become successful, reject anything else”
Coincidentally, this is also the thesis that’s most in line with CIA’s agenda.
Decelerationist, self-defeating, ever-purging, easy to pervert & ultimately tame.

2026-06-08 07:02:07 UTC

It’s fine to believe in narratives and follow leaders or ideologies
But if new data emerges, which contradicts your beliefs
and you still choose believe in your thesis
you’re just someone’s useful idiot
Follow the truth, not people or ideology

2026-06-07 22:16:35 UTC

You don’t need to listen to 40 hours of podcasts per week in order to use AI
You literally just open a website and use it
Or if you’re fancy like myself, you install qwen on your computer
Bitcoin was supposed to be this simple too. But if you walk people through “what is money”, ask them to read a bunch of books and get them to listen to podcasts just to build enough conviction to ask someone else to accept bitcoin for payments
This will never scale to reach mass adoption
It needs to be stupid simple: scan or tap to spend, self custody with a 4-6 digit PIN, build use cases that solve actual problems instead of trying to reinvent the wheel or post-rationalize bitcoin as something people will never care about.
How did we get so derailed?

2026-06-07 01:08:08 UTC

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First!

2026-06-06 21:11:10 UTC

About 10 years ago, bitcoiners were so educated that they could explain everything wrong with Ethereum, Zcash and Monero.
Today, it’s the shitcoiners who school bitcoiners on how Bitcoin works.
Truly sad and pathetic.

2026-06-06 11:09:53 UTC

The Bitcoin Film Fest begins today in Warsaw! @npub1rjt…mp8a
The bad news: I couldn’t make it this year
The good news: 200 lucky participants will receive a Bitcoin Takeover podcast poster, featuring some of the guests
Including @npub1qqq…lxwk @npub13nd…0svh @npub16jh…w5l3
Don’t scan the QR code, it might bite!
https://image.nostr.build/c88d0ea8f1900d54dec2098c99945d62c68f951763234f6185cb1ef24797f448.jpg

2026-06-06 11:01:00 UTC

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Yeah, Zcash is great

2026-06-04 23:09:42 UTC

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Thank you for paying attention to my work 🫡

2026-06-04 23:08:51 UTC

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Lexus LC500 and the current gen Miata are still great. Subaru BRZ/Toyota 86 are amazing too. Then there’s the Yaris GR which is basically a street legal rally car.
And now Toyota is launching the GR GT and is rumored to bring back MR2/Celica. There will probably be a new generation of the Supra too.
Nissan also made the Skyline GTR until last year.
It’s just that the car market has changed and most buyers want SUVs. And gas is more expensive, so the average person cannot afford rotary engines.

2026-06-04 15:23:09 UTC

Bought my car in December 2024, when the price of 1 bitcoin was $104k
At the time, some folks laughed at me and said I bought a Lexus with the money I could later use to buy a Lambo or private jet
18 months later, I can sell this car and buy more BTC than I initially spent
Let it sink in: a devaluing car is a better store of value than the most advertised store of value in all the markets
https://image.nostr.build/3bbf1aaa34643f79a3a6e7026cb67342647f8a034fee84d1d70fe70c238dcbd6.jpg
https://image.nostr.build/c3503127b9b129b30efa83fbc9ca6e73a516d5c6f9dd715c8a2fa6e46bc4a036.jpg

2026-06-04 15:11:03 UTC

Most popular Bitcoin Takeover podcast episodes* of 2026
(so far)
*according to Spotify & Apple Podcasts. YouTube & Twitter not included.
Which one is your favorite?
https://image.nostr.build/d4bbc34aef087aa87e3fbc9d0123adeb93d3ace2a9652ad3c0fb3e22de35cb5b.jpg

2026-06-04 09:20:16 UTC

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💪🏻💪🏻💪🏻

2026-06-03 22:26:28 UTC

After years of HODLing with strong hands, I finally bought my Supra
I bought every time Adam Back tweeted “BTFD”
I went into debt as Michael Saylor said, to reach the triple maxi status
When my family came asking for help for grandpa’s surgery, I told them to have fun staying poor
I walked out with holes in my socks and underwear to save money and stack more sats
I cheered for every ETF approval and expected institutions to come begging for my 0.1 BTC and offer mansions or private jets in exchange for my scarce sats
I took pride in never spending a single sat – I didn’t even withdraw from Swan to avoin paying a 500 sat transaction fee
But now I know it was all worth it
I own the car of my dreams
2JZ GTE with extra $10k in fly over night parts from Japan
The car I saw in The Fast & The Furious 25 years ago
The holy grail of JDM
It was all thanks to HODLing
Because bitcoin is scarce and therefore the price always go up
Demand doesn’t play any role in this. Just because there will only ever be 21 million coins, everyone will only want to buy this
The price went up so high thanks to ETFs, institutions, and Saylor’s financial engineering, that I could finally afford this beautiful Supra
Thank you all for giving me such amazing financial advice!
If I bought Monero, I would be like 3 times richer.
If I swapped my 0.1 bitcoin for Zcash, I’d be a double wholecoiner today!
But it doesn’t matter because these are shitcoins and not sound money.
There is no second best, unless it’s stablecoins in Solana for which you own yield… or good old US dollars.
Supraaaaaa 😍
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2026-06-01 09:01:52 UTC

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You cannot activate soft forks without miners. That would be a sybil attack.

2026-06-01 09:01:20 UTC

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Monero is an entirely different codebase, never had a major split that made people try to identify “the real Monero” or what Saberhagen would have wanted.

2026-06-01 09:00:24 UTC

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Rootstock is still a federation that relies on HSMs for security.

2026-05-31 08:05:20 UTC

You know, I really respect bcashers for being true remnants
9 years later, even after they had 2 major community splits (BSV and XEC)
even after the lead developer left
even after market has clearly favored small block BTC
while the hashrate is ~1% of Bitcoin’s
they keep going
lots of high profile big blockers dropped their support around 2020 to embrace Ethereum
but there are still devs shipping new features and OP codes that put Bitcoin Core to shame
in spite of having fewer resources.
Never had inflation bugs, the lesser degree of conservativeness didn’t make the dev team sloppy
They even reported the 2018 inflation bug in Bitcoin, didn’t try to exploit it in a time when they could easily become destructive.
Wasabi 2.0 was inspired by Cash Fusion, many of the covenant proposals are iterations of the already available OP_CheckDataSig and the reactivation of OP_CAT.
The big blockers actually did a great job scaling Bitcoin, settling for dynamic 32 MB blocks that can be bigger only if the user pays for it, and ironically setting up much stronger foundations for trust minimized L2s. They can even run a better version of Lightning, with fewer hiccups.
Without any grants from HRF, Jack Dorsey’s companies, MIT, or mainstream financial institutions – which is probably why they were able to ship code instead of trying to find the meaning of the word “consensus”.
Bitcoin Cash did a great job scaling and making Satoshi’s codebase more useful. I wish Core would learn and try to compete instead of “bikeshedding”.
I also wish it wasn’t taboo to look at competing codebases and take the best parts. You know, like actual cypherpunks who don’t need to signal loyalty to a church in order to be taken seriously.
https://www.youtube.com/live/SJkwCaQLRuc?is=nuyi1-oUuuQX5PZw

2026-05-29 17:48:37 UTC

I got nothing but positive feedback on the 8-hour Bitcoin Cash podcast episode
What is wrong with this community, where’s the toxicity?
https://www.youtube.com/live/SJkwCaQLRuc?is=0jgQ6fkoKbb5a7F6

2026-05-29 17:47:38 UTC

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When did we all get hot girlfriends? 😂

2026-05-29 06:03:50 UTC

2025: paper bitcoin summer
2026: ???

2026-05-28 22:08:44 UTC

What is the most exciting thing in Bitcoin right now?

2026-05-27 18:38:03 UTC

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Send me a cease and desist from the Bitcoin trademark holder

2026-05-24 21:10:32 UTC

Would you watch this vampire movie? 🍿
https://image.nostr.build/92fafc9e3bdd91297c42ddb33fc6c517c925abdadfbc6eb71fca382eed1db9ba.jpg

2026-05-24 17:55:09 UTC

DON’T SCAN THIS QR
https://image.nostr.build/8afcaabd56eb52ae6dc1a353f7ddb2c5c77674e02e34131458f33e77b56aee65.jpg

2026-05-24 17:54:53 UTC

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Lightning is not Bitcoin.
And if you have more coins than the entire 5000 BTC that’s locked on Lightning, you have 0 privacy.

2026-05-24 15:30:48 UTC

My personal brand is that I’m just being myself, I don’t even know what a personal brand means and at this point I’m too afraid to ask

2026-05-24 15:29:59 UTC

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Look up Tachyon, it’s shipping this year on Zcash to bring very good scaling without the need for L2s.
“Blockchains don’t scale” was valid a decade ago. Now we have better math and cryptography research.

2026-05-24 15:28:26 UTC

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You have no sender or amount privacy in Bitcoin.

2026-05-24 09:25:08 UTC

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If you took the time to download a wallet, you would see that Zcash has DeFi integrations with NEAR Intents & Maya protocol.
Basically you can send shielded ZEC and perform a swap within minutes, so you can pay anywhere BTC, USDT, or whatever other coin is accepted without revealing how many coins you have in your wallet.
The receiver will see an incoming transaction from a DeFi liquidity pool, the DeFi service has no idea who you are and how many coins you own outside the ones you sent.

2026-05-23 23:46:58 UTC

Love you too, Slovenia & Serbia ❤️
Thank you for listening to Bitcoin Takeover podcast!
https://image.nostr.build/b29bb8f7c53e820176f83abf94c899ef00dc66b657311137fb76dc61eb826682.jpg

2026-05-23 23:46:32 UTC

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Main character syndrome, look it up.
Zcash has been in development for a decade and now it’s finally ready for mainstream adoption.
These big VCs are early investors and they onboarded their friends too.
Also, the shielded adoption doesn’t lie. Zcash is happening, even Monero is upgrading to be more like Zcash with FCMP.