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...

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 pl...

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 o...

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...

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 comp...

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...

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 peo...

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...

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 he...

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...

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...

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. --- Follow Gigi: Twitter: @dergigi Website: dergigi.com

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.'

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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. ---

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 te...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...