Stephan Livera Podcast

Join Stephan as he interviews the sharpest economic and technical minds in Bitcoin & Austrian Economics to help you understand how money is changing and evolving. Leading names in the world of Bitcoin join the show to share their insights, whether they are developers, CEOs, economists, authors, analysts and more.

Stephan Livera Podcast is a technology podcast hosted by Stephan Livera, with 777 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80.

Stephan Livera hosts Stephan Livera Podcast, a technology show with 777 episodes published.

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  Episode #777

  Bitcoin Savings vs Casino Exchanges | Julian Liniger SLP777

  Sep 29, 202651 minS1

  Most crypto exchanges are built like casinos: they chase the next hot token, prediction market, or trading product. Relai is building a different category—a savings brand for people who want to accumulate Bitcoin, hold it in self-custody, and build wealth over the long run. Julian Liniger explains why serving patient savers requires a different product, message, and business model. The conversation also explores why rising living costs are pushing Europeans to rethink ordinary savings, and why the temptation to get rich quickly can drive people toward momentum trading and leverage. Julian makes the case for a longer time horizon: Bitcoin savings is less about chasing the next move and more about consistently building a position through changing market conditions. Supporting context includes Relai's MiCA compliance journey, where regulatory overhead is costly but can also raise the bar for smaller competitors. Julian also discusses the company's self-custody model and reports more than 100,000 users holding over 20,000 BTC in their own wallets—not under Relai management. The episode covers how a Bitcoin-only company can earn revenue through services around long-term ownership while keeping the savings proposition at the center. Timestamps: 00:01 — Europe's Cost of Living Squeeze 03:11 — Why Europeans Still Don't Get Bitcoin 07:37 — High Time Preference & Get-Rich-Quick 10:31 — Bitcoin Needs Patience Again 10:54 — AI Hype vs Bitcoin as Savings 14:58 — Bitcoin Is Where You Keep Your Winnings 21:42 — Leverage, Treasury Cos & Risk 23:46 — Relai Private Loans in Europe 29:03 — MiCA: Overhead and Moat 33:11 — Bitcoin Savings vs Casino Exchanges 35:26 — 100k Users, 20k+ BTC Self-Custody 37:49 — Retail App vs Relai Private 40:00 — Self-Custody Phone Wallet 42:58 — Seven-Figure Raise in a Bear Market 45:12 — AI for Building and Securing Relai 50:00 — Living Costs Drive Bitcoin Search Links: https://x.com/julian_liniger https://x.com/relai_app Stephan Livera links: Follow me on X: @stephanlivera Subscribe to the podcast Subscribe to Substack

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  Episode #776

  Bitcoin PIPEs v2 | Misha Komarov SLP776

  Sep 24, 202643 minS1

  Bitcoin soft-fork debates around CTV, CSFS, OP_CAT, and OP_VAULT keep stalling — and Misha Komarov of Allocinit argues you can emulate much of that covenant behavior with cryptography instead of changing consensus. Misha joins Stephan to unpack Bitcoin PIPEs v2: a Witness Encryption design that locks a signing key under an NP statement so a valid zero-knowledge proof decrypts the key and produces an ordinary Schnorr spend. Bitcoin L1 only checks a normal signature. They compare PIPEs v1 (Functional Encryption / richer post-covenants) with v2 (Witness Encryption / binary pre-covenants), ciphertext sizes from ~300 TB toward single-digit terabytes, DKG and 1-of-n setup assumptions, non-custodial vault and shared-pool use cases, contrasts with cosigner models like Sigbash, and how Allocinit’s Shielded Bitcoin design differs from Shielded CSV’s client-side validation approach — plus open cryptanalysis challenges and a path toward implementable code. Timestamps: 00:00 — Intro: Misha & Bitcoin PIPEs v2 00:27 — Background: BitMessage to =nil; 01:31 — Soft-Fork Fatigue & Nice-to-Haves 03:24 — Emulate Opcodes Without Soft Forks 04:54 — Witness Encryption Unlocks Keys 06:01 — Witness Encryption vs Bitcoin Witness 09:00 — PIPEs v1 vs v2: FE to WE 11:39 — Ciphertext Size & Cost Trade-offs 15:28 — Vaults as the Unhappy Path 16:23 — PIPEs vs Sigbash Cosigner 18:05 — DKG Setup & 1-of-n Trust 21:11 — Shared Vaults & Lending Use Cases 23:24 — Beyond Canonical OP_VAULT 26:35 — Shielded Bitcoin vs Shielded CSV 32:17 — Self-Custody Peg-In and Peg-Out 37:14 — On-Chain Footprint Walkthrough 39:42 — Security Challenges & Code Roadmap Links: https://x.com/nemothenoone https://x.com/allocinitxyz Stephan Livera links: Follow me on X: @stephanlivera Subscribe to the podcast Subscribe to Substack

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  Episode #775

  rbitcoin: Bitcoin Full Node With Zero Human Code | reardencode SLP775

  Sep 24, 202645 minS1

  Almost every public Bitcoin node still runs Bitcoin Core. Brandon Black argues that client monoculture is a systemic risk — and that automation plus AI now make independent consensus implementations more realistic than skeptics assume. Brandon (aka reardencode) returns to Stephan Livera Podcast for the first episode in a mini-series on non-Core Bitcoin implementations. He is shipping rbitcoin, a Rust full node aimed at server-side wallet and Lightning backends, with Electrum served in-process. They dig into why rbitcoin has no UTXO set and no Core-style dbcache, how build-time differential testing differs from satd’s in-process libbitcoinconsensus dual-eval, BIP324 v2-only P2P, archival storage tradeoffs, LibreRelay-inspired policy, and what “production-ready™” means when every first-party line was written by AI under his prompting. Brandon is blunt about maturity: the project is still early, contributors are welcome at rbitcoin.org, and listeners should treat alt clients as high-scrutiny infrastructure — not a drop-in replacement for Core tomorrow. Timestamps: 00:00 — Intro: Brandon Black & rbitcoin 00:34 — Why Build rbitcoin 03:46 — Alt Clients Mini-Series 04:39 — Consensus Divergence Risk 05:53 — satd vs rbitcoin Paths 06:51 — Automation Makes Diversity Possible 08:29 — Build-Time Differential Testing 09:20 — Why Consensus Bugs Matter 10:55 — Lessons from btcd Divergences 13:35 — Target User: Wallet Backends 15:29 — Miners Leave the Non-Goal List 16:47 — Kill the dbcache Model 20:50 — Electrum In-Process 22:23 — Silent Payments & Tor 23:01 — BIP324 v2-Only P2P 23:46 — AI-Coded: Zero Human Lines 25:04 — Grok Plus Multi-Model Review 27:01 — DoS Rules & LibreRelay 28:34 — Upgrade Hooks 29:34 — Archive-Only, No 'UTXO Set' 31:50 — AI as the New Compiler 33:52 — Context Limits & Dependencies 38:06 — rust-bitcoin Relationship 39:08 — Wallet Infra Opportunity 40:00 — Still 10% a Joke 41:35 — Future of Client Diversity 44:50 — Outro: rbitcoin.org Links: https://x.com/reardencode https://rbitcoin.org/ Stephan Livera links: Follow me on X: @stephanlivera Subscribe to the podcast Subscribe to Substack

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  Episode #774

  Bitcoin Accelerator on Mirissa Beach | James of Ârc SLP774

  Sep 22, 202636 minS1

  Most Asian markets still make buying and saving Bitcoin painfully hard. James of Ârc argues the fix is not another protocol breakthrough — it is local founders shipping simple DCA and savings products market by market. James joins me from Mirissa Beach, Sri Lanka, where Arc is partnering with Fulgur Ventures on a continuous Bitcoin accelerator. He is a former EY advisor and Playfair Capital investor who previously built with Alexander Mann (now Fulgur GP) and later sold Consequence, an early LLM-on-databases company. The conversation covers why the program is continuous rather than a six- or twelve-week cohort, how to apply at arc.lk/Fulgur, why Sri Lanka ranks among his top-three country bets, the South Coast talent melting pot, funding DCA apps across Asia even where operators already exist, AI agents as Bitcoin users, and why Strike expanding should not scare local founders. Timestamps: 00:00 — Intro: James of Ârc 00:35 — From Accenture to Venture Capital 02:13 — Building With Alex Singh 03:21 — Fed Up With Monkey JPEGs 05:10 — Ârc Fulgur Bitcoin Accelerator 06:35 — Continuous Program at Mirissa 07:34 — Two Paths Into Ârc Fulgur 10:13 — Why Sri Lanka? 12:02 — Top-Three Country Bet 12:23 — Whales, Leopards, Beach Hub 15:00 — South Coast Talent Melting Pot 18:36 — 34 Local Founders Already In 21:39 — Fund DCA Apps Across Asia 25:23 — AI Agents Will Use Bitcoin 28:18 — Room for Many Asian Operators 32:23 — Just Focus on Your Customer 32:39 — Apply Now Links: https://x.com/James_of_Arc https://x.com/FulgurVentures https://arc.lk/ Stephan Livera links: Follow me on X: @stephanlivera Subscribe to the podcast Subscribe to Substack

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  Stephan Livera Podcast

  Institutional Custody, Multisig & the War on Cash | Mike Belshe SLP773

  Sep 15, 20261h 7m

  Mike Belshe, co-founder and CEO of BitGo, walks through how institutional Bitcoin custody actually works in 2026: qualified custody, self-custody co-signing, and why BitGo still centers a 2-of-3 model after pioneering P2SH multisig in 2013. BitGo now operates as a US-regulated qualified custodian and public company, while still offering the same wallet stack individuals can run in self-custody mode. The conversation covers what “institutional security” means in practice — HSM-backed co-signing, open-source recovery paths, multi-jurisdictional key storage (including how BitGo moved WBTC when US regulation looked hostile), and why on-chain multisig still beats vendor-locked MPC for cold ops. They also dig into the political and operational risks around large Bitcoin holdings: KYC and PII as honeypots, France tying names to amounts, the war on cash reaching Bitcoin, and whether an EO 6102-style confiscation risk still belongs in the threat model. On the institutional side, Belshe pushes back on multi-custodian setups that add failure modes, explains insurance limits versus the size of the Bitcoin market, and why splitting wallets matters after events like Bybit. Timestamps 00:00 — Intro: Mike Belshe of BitGo 00:59 — Don't Lose Self-Custody's Power 05:41 — Retail Deserves Institutional Security 07:16 — Humans Are Terrible at OpSec 09:56 — 2-of-3 Protects Theft and Loss 14:35 — Retail Pays 160 Basis Points 19:22 — Why People Drift Toward Banks 20:35 — Self-Custody Is Never Trustless 23:39 — Why BitGo Sticks to 2-of-3 30:31 — A Public CEO Holds Zero at Home 31:27 — KYC Leaks Are Government Honeypots 39:28 — France Doxed Bitcoin Holdings 41:30 — War on Cash Reaches Bitcoin 43:45 — Multi-Jurisdictional Key Storage 45:29 — Executive Order 6102 Could Return 47:43 — Quantum-Resistant Wallets Today 49:27 — Multisig Beats MPC 53:33 — Splitting Custodians Adds Failures 58:29 — 2-of-2 MPC Can't Recover Loss 01:00:57 — $5–7B Insurance vs $1.6T Bitcoin 01:03:35 — Bybit Lost 10x by Not Splitting 01:05:21 — Multi-Institution vs Qualified Custody Links: https://x.com/mikebelshe https://x.com/bitgo Stephan Livera links: Follow me on X: @stephanlivera Subscribe to the podcast Subscribe to Substack

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