recording of the ⁦space talking about the #btc bill with the president of El Salvador ⁦@nayibbukele
⁩ + @nic__carter @PeterMcCormack @bitcoinmom @bukele @APompliano @CaitlinLong_ @gladstein @Bitcoinbeach @balajis

El Salvador president live on Twitter Spaces the hour before the congress passes bitcoin bill

London based producer Fork and Knife has carved his own unique sound paying homage to the music that has shaped his tastes as well as the underground club scenes he is now a part of. His debut on Lab Beat (and our first release for over 5 years) is pure heavyweight fire!!! Featuring a remix from Lab Beat collaborator Clackman Duke.

Hellion

Interview location: Skype
Interview date: Tuesday 9th April, 2019
Company: Nic - Castle Island Ventures | Pierre - Independent Bitcoin Advisor
Role: Nic - Partner | Pierre - Founder

The Lightning Network is a second layer scaling solution for Bitcoin, designed to maintain the security of the protocol while offering a new way for users to send and receive Bitcoin, ideally faster and cheaper.

The Lightning technology is new and essentially in a live beta where users are encouraged to test it out, but with small and limited amounts of Bitcoin, still, the capacity of the network is growing fast. As more users come onto the network and the capacity increases, users are finding areas which can be improved, and developers are working to implement upgrades.

Lightning is not the same as the base chain; the experience has differences which can take a little getting used to. At the moment, users have to create channels and be aware of the capacity of these channels. Further, the lightning network is intrinsically linked to the base chain, opening a channel creates a transaction, and therefore a fee and these fees may impact how people use Lightning.

The complexity is a reflection of how new Lightning is but it is improving all the time. In this interview I talk about the economics of the network with Nic Carter and Pierre Rochard, We discuss the fee market, the future of the block subsidy and whether base chain fees will lead to a two-tier Bitcoin.

The What Bitcoin Did Podcast

Nic Carter & Pierre Rochard on the Economics of The Lightning Network

Interview location: Skype
Interview date: Thursday 11th April, 2019
Company: Coin Center
Role: Research Director

The regulatory lens of Bitcoin is also now on the Lightning Network, and there are questions around how regulations might apply to node operators and custodial wallet providers. Should they require a money transmission license? Should they be subject to KYC/AML requirements?

While Bitcoin companies have adapted to the regulatory requirements and secured licenses as required, the requirements for the Lightning Network are a little less clear.

Coin Center is working with regulators to advocate those node operators should not require a money transmission license. In this interview, I talk with Coin Center’s Peter Van Valkenburgh about the work they are doing and how regulations might affect aspects of the Lightning Network.

Peter Van Valkenburg on Lightning & The Law

Interview location: Skype
Interview date: Thursday 25th April, 2019
University: MIT Digital Currency Initiative
Role: Research Scientist

The simple promise of the Lightning Network is that it solves the scaling issues inherent with one-megabyte blocks in Bitcoin, offering users near instant and low-cost payments. Now the Lightning Network is in beta, actively being used and stress tested, questions are being asked about its limitations.

Proponents for on-chain scaling have been harsh critics of Lightning, questioning everything from the time it has taken to develop to whether it does solve high fees. Proponents of Lightning often defend it, claiming it is early, and many exciting things are being developed to address these early issues.

What is clear is that the Lightning Network has much to prove, and there are risks it will not solve all the issues with scaling and potentially becomes a tool for the Bitcoin rich. 

Tadge Dryja co-authored the Lightning Network whitepaper with Joseph Poon and worked on the initial implementation. In this interview, we discuss the limitations of the Lightning, why Bitcoin might not be for everyone, alternative scaling ideas, the fee network and inflation.

Tadge Dryja on the Limitations of the Lightning Network

The perfect crime. The perfect criminal. The Perfect Client. 

Join us as Dr. Craig "Faketoshi" Wright's overweening self regard and cavalier disregard for truth careens headlong into a brick wall and he learns a costly lesson: that he is decidedly NOT the smartest man in the courtroom.

Original intro theme courtesy Calming Chamber. Follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/gloomfather and on Bandcamp at https://orlandogloom.bandcamp.com

Faketoshi: The Perfect Client

Episode 3: Faketoshi - The Perfect Client

Find the show valuable? Become a patron! www.patreon.com/noded

The Cultural Consequences of Fiat Money | Jörg Guido Hülsmann

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAN5CKbZnD0

Demo of Caravan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pZaFVF-XbA&t=

Dhruv on Twitter: https://twitter.com/dhruvbansal


About Dhruv:

~~~

I’m a jack-of-all-trades entrepreneur & technologist. I do math, build models, gather requirements from customers, bang out code, crunch data, design cloud environments, fundraise, ideate business models, automate stacks, make tasty powerpoints, train AIs, sell deals, architect applications, & crack-wise. If you’ve worked with me, you know: I run 100% of the time on passion and I talk too much.

I started out my career as a scientist, working on my PhD in statistical physics at UT Austin. I studied a variety of traditional and non-traditional systems, typically from the perspective of networks, transport, & thermal/statistical processes. The work got even more interesting for me when we started to plug in real-world datasets which led to a whole new life (and new obsession) of programming against huge amounts of data.

I co-founded Infochimps while I was still at UT. We started out trying to bring great data to the masses but found success with a Big Data platform that we installed and managed for the Enterprise. Infochimps grew through great investors and amazing employees and was acquired in August, 2013 by CSC.

At about the same time I became intensely curious about Bitcoin. In 2015, when I left CSC, I spent months going "down the rabbit hole" learning about and programming against Bitcoin. In 2016 I co-founded Unchained Capital, a financial services company building products for long-term cryptocurrency holders. Our first product was a BTC-collateralized USD loan which we launched in June, 2017, making us one of the first crypto-backed lenders in the US. We recently launched a "collaborative custody" solution which offers Bitcoin holders greater security without sacrificing their sovereignty. 

Check us out at https://www.unchained-capital.com 

~~~

Noded 0.64.0 With Dhruv Bansal

Location: Squadcast
Date: Wednesday 2nd September   
Company: Independent Trader, Entrepreneur & Author, The Investors Podcast 
Role: Bitcoin Quant Analyst, Independent & Host

When Plan released his revised Stock-to-Flow model as a Cross Asset Model (S2FX), he added a new concept: phase transitions. This revision to the model takes into consideration the evolution of Bitcoin’s use and meaning, as such, from proof of concept to payments to e-gold to a financial asset.

Following the halving in May, many have speculated what the next transitional phase would be for Bitcoin, with the model predicting the price of Bitcoin potentially reaching $288K. 

With Bitcoin being a provably scarce asset, in times of unprecedented money printing and fiat currency debasement, the bull case for Bitcoin is clear. However, in August, MicroStrategy sent a clear message to businesses everywhere, when in August they announced their purchase of 21,454 Bitcoin, over 1% of the total supply.

MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor said that they view Bitcoin as a “dependable store of value and an attractive investment asset with more long-term appreciation potential than holding cash”. Other companies have started following MicroStrategy by holding Bitcoin within their treasury.

Could companies holding Bitcoin to protect their cash reserves be the next phased transition for Bitcoin?

In this interview, I talk to Bitcoin quant analyst & creator of the stock to flow model, Plan₿, author of The Price of Tomorrow Jeff Booth & author, engineer & the host of The Investor Podcast, Preston Pysh. We discuss how Bitcoin S2F is entering phase 5.

Bitcoin Has Entered Phase 5 with PlanB, Jeff Booth & Preston Pysh

If you are sufficiently robotic, and think your sounds might be appreciated by Lab Beat, please send them to charlie@labbeat.com