When The Music Stops

On June 5, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele declared that bitcoin would become legal tender in El Salvador. On September 7th of this year, that law came into effect.

But the government of El Salvador (and the self-described "Emperor", Nayib Bukele) went further than just permitting the use of Bitcoin for payments- they had a wallet built for the people and offered a $30 signing bonus for citizens who would onboard with their government identification number. Although many in the Bitcoin community see this as a gesture of massive freedom, some see the glaring red flags of the closed-source custodial app.

Oscar Salguero is senior mobile developer with over 25 years of coding experience and a native Salvadorian, a country he lived in for the first 26 years of his life. Since the release of the Chivo wallet (the state sanctioned Bitcoin wallet promoted by the president), Oscar has been peeling away at the closed source application to better understand how the app actually works. For more about our guest, please visit his website:

https://oscarsalguero.com/

You can follow Oscar on twitter (@OscarSalguero) and his hobby project (@CodePlayTalkDev) where he likes to stream  himself coding, playing games and chatting. If you are also curious about the Chivo wallet and want to help in testing or have interesting information about your findings, reach out to him or myself and we will gladly exchange info.

During this episode we discuss the mysterious private companies that were selected to build the state sanctioned application. You can read the article we mention in our discussion here:

https://www.clarin.com/tecnologia/lemon-cash-empresa-argentina-detras-implementacion-bitcoin-salvador_0_PaxkdocMO.html

We also touch on many of the features of the app, the good, the bad and the ugly.

Poll from last week on spotify:
"Is Bukele's Bitcoin Law doing good for El Salvador?"
25 votes were cast
16% said "Yes"
84% said "No"

Follow me on twitter, as always (@aviv_WtMS)

On June 5, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele declared that bitcoin would become legal tender in El Salvador. On September 7th of this year, that law came into effect.

Fans of Bitcoin are split between those who see this as a huge win for a decentralized payment system and those who point to the tyrannical character that is Bukele and worry that this will do more harm than good.

From my 6th floor podcast studio in Miami at the Oslo Freedom Forum I had the opportunity to speak to a journalist and El Salvador native on the full implications of the law and what it really means to the people of El Salvador and the Bitcoin movement.

Please follow my guest Nelson Rauda on twitter (@raudaz_) and see all of his excellent work on elfaro.net (translation "the Lighthouse", a newspaper out of El Salvador).

We discuss his article on the Bitcoin Party that took place shortly after the law was passed:
https://elfaro.net/es/202109/el_salvador/25711/Los-evangelistas-del-bitcoin-bailan-conga-en-El-Salvador.htm

We also discuss the work of Alex Gladstein, the organizer of the OFF and a HRF executive who stands in support of freedom everywhere and the fight against tyranny. Read his work here:
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/the-polarity-of-bitcoin-in-el-salvador

Please follow me on twitter for the latest podcast updates!
@milner_aviv

What if Bitcoin wasn't the future?

What if one Florida man was sent here to save us all from our hard earned money and to free of us of our earthly desires to be wealthy through the graces of pumpamentals? Well we have another Florida man (Bitcoin Uncensored dumbest host and male counterpart, Chris DeRose) to tell us about this. We talk about many things, including Richard Heart's incredibly brilliant scam "Hex" as well as Cardano, ZCash, Ripple and even Ethereum. Are they scams? We will let you, the 16-year-old avid crypto investor, decide on whether your parents money gets lost this year.

To those who have sent hate mail to the tune of "Chris DeRose is not the dumbest co-host of BU, he is the second dumbest", I want you to remind you that I said dumbest MAN in Bitcoin. The dumbest cis-woman (Junseth, co-host of BU) has agreed to be detained and questioned against his will and he (errr... excuse me, she) agreed to reveal all. But at what cost?

WtMS is in MIAMI for the Oslo Freedom Forum and boy do we have some interesting stories to tell! We had to cop out by publishing a part 2 as a new episode in the meantime, until we get back. We apologize for any inconvenience, your unquestioning loyalty is important to us.

As always, follow me on twitter and stay tuned for some epic new content that should be on the way soon!
https://twitter.com/milner_aviv

Join the unofficial subreddit of this podcast! r/buttcoin is your place for the best and funniest content in the space!

It's time to lawyer up because this one might get me sued, but honestly I wouldn't have it any other way!

Dr. Carol Alexander is a Professor of Finance at Sussex, a visiting Professor at Peking University HSBC Business School, and Co-Editor of the Journal of Banking and Finance.  She holds a BSc in Maths with Experimental Psychology and a PhD in Algebraic Number Theory. She took a post-doc in Amsterdam, worked as a bond analyst for Phillips and Drew, and attended the London School of Economics as a Research Assistant in game theory/labour economics also taking their MSc in Mathematical Economics and Econometrics. In 1985 she took a lectureship in Mathematics and Economics at the University of Sussex, while also designing risk, pricing, hedging and trading models for investment banks, fund managers and exchanges.

In this episode we discuss her focus over the last year, exposing the illegal and dangerous behavior of Binance as it affects retail traders. Please check out her website (which is very well done and easy to navigate) for her academic publications, her blog posts and much more.

https://www.coalexander.com/blog

As always, thank you so much to my excellent fans who DM me on twitter and help me find guests, I couldn't have done it without you!

Follow me on twitter for tweets only relating to the show and new episodes!

https://twitter.com/milner_aviv

To leave comments and join the discussion, check out this reddit post!

https://www.reddit.com/r/Buttcoin/comments/pwiol7/binance_exposed_again_dr_carol_alexander_on_wtms/

What is up party people? Yes! I can't believe it either! The greatest Bitcoin podcast has come back to life and is here on our show!

What is Bitcoin Uncensored? Well Chris DeRose and Junseth are probably the only two that could do it justice, but this tribute will have to do for now. It ran from 2015-17 and then (due to their falling out) it died off. I still consider it the best place to learn everything blockchain.

Follow me on twitter! (@milner_aviv)

Do you want to hear some of the 100+ episodes of Bitcoin Uncensored? Well you won't easily find it online, but if you say the magic words and tweet at me, I will give you a riddle with 12 challenges. Complete those challenges and get my Junseth's personal cell phone number and I will provide you an episode of one show.

Stay tuned for part 2!

Also check out this excellent article that just came out and mentions Chris quite a bit!

https://www.ft.com/content/9e787670-6aa7-4479-934f-f4a9fedf4829

If you want to talk to Chris or myself and leave some comments, do it on r/buttcoin (he is u/brighton36)

https://www.reddit.com/r/Buttcoin/comments/psonxg/bitcoin_uncensored_w_chris_derose_wtms_podcast_qa/

You can't handle the truth!

Have you heard this before - "I'm not very excited about Bitcoin, Ethereum or any of these cryptocurrencies but I am optimistic about the technology behind it, the Blockchain!" Well I have heard that quite a bit as well, and if you are a regular listener you probably know that I am a bit skeptical of the claims.  

Tim Swanson (@ofnumbers) is on to discuss this very thing and help us distinguish the real and the fake. He has been an active part of the space for roughly ten years and has even published books on the topic of technology in Bitcoin & Blockchain. His current role as the head of market intelligence at Clearmatics, as well as his previous work at companies like R3 puts him in the unique category of folks working on enterprise blockchain and DLT (distributed ledger technology) solutions.

I press him, perhaps a bit too much, to tell me the use cases of the crypto world outside of skirting regulations and our conversation reveals some critical issues.  To learn more about Tim, check out his twitter which also gives you a sense of the companies he works for:
https://twitter.com/ofnumbers  

Follow me on twitter for podcast updates: https://twitter.com/milner_aviv  

Are you bullish on DLTs, Blockchains and the tech behind Bitcoin? Maybe you hold a lot of XRP and need some new money to hold those heavy bags (so heavy). Either way, you probably want to reach out to me and let me know why I am wrong! Well my DMs are always open and I respond kindly to threats, hate and free Nano.

Have you heard this before - "I'm not very excited about Bitcoin, Ethereum or any of these cryptocurrencies but I am optimistic about the technology behind it, the Blockchain!" Well I have heard that quite a bit as well, and if you are a regular listener you probably know that I am a bit skeptical of the claims.

Tim Swanson (@ofnumbers) is on to discuss this very thing and help us distinguish the real and the fake. He has been an active part of the space for roughly ten years and has even published books on the topic of technology in Bitcoin & Blockchain. His current role as the head of market intelligence at Clearmatics, as well as his previous work at companies like R3 puts him in the unique category of folks working on enterprise blockchain and DLT (distributed ledger technology) solutions. I press him, perhaps a bit too much, to tell me the use cases of the crypto world outside of skirting regulations and our conversation reveals some critical issues.

To learn more about Tim, check out his twitter which also gives you a sense of the companies he works for:
https://twitter.com/ofnumbers

Follow me on twitter for podcast updates:
https://twitter.com/milner_aviv

Are you bullish on DLTs, Blockchains and the tech behind Bitcoin? Maybe you hold a lot of XRP and need some new money to hold those heavy bags (so heavy). Either way, you probably want to reach out to me and let me know why I am wrong! Well my DMs are always open and I respond kindly to threats, hate and free Nano. 

My good friend and professionally trained Russian artist Anton Lukashov is back for a second episode to discuss his experience trying to make a bit of money on the side selling his excellent digital artwork. Full disclosure, I hold no NFTs, and do not plan to buy any of them at any point in the future, but I do hold many off Anton's physical paintings and prints (digital art printed on fine paper).

In this episode we discuss what exactly is going on with the NFT space and try to make sense of why so many questionable items are being sold at exorbitant prices. We discuss the excellent work of renowned journalist and recurring guest Amy Castor, and consider the likely illicit nature of much of what the NFT space may be covering for.

Check out Amy's article here:
https://amycastor.com/2021/07/01/like-high-art-nfts-hit-all-the-right-targets-for-money-laundering/#post-7599

Please support her work by subscribing to her Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/amycastor

Previous episode (episode 2):
A critical discussion on the utility of NFTs with my good friend, Anton Lukashov, an architectural professional and an artist who outlines the challenges of making it as an artist (first 50 minutes). Anton describes how the hype around NFTs compelled him to join a new unregulated industry in the past few months and sell a few pieces online. Although his expectations of NFTs are high, most of the episode confronts many of the claims and leaves us asking if anything was solved at all.  

Follow Anton on twitter and check out his work (which includes physical prints and paintings) on Instagram and on his website.

https://twitter.com/antnartist
https://www.instagram.com/antonlukashov/
https://www.antonlukashov.com/

Follow me on twitter for the latest episodes. Note, I will no longer be tweeting anything apart from podcast publications.
https://twitter.com/milner_aviv

DMs are always open!

Dr. Nicholas Weaver is a senior staff researcher focusing on computer security at the International Computer Science Institute in Berkeley, California, and a lecturer in the Computer Science department at the University of California at Berkeley.

In this second of two parts, Dr. Weaver goes deep into his expertise as a network security and computer vulnerabilities expert to describe the reality of much of the hype around "blockchains". He pulls no punches and describes the actual utility in Blockchain, and perhaps the lack thereof.

More about Dr. Nicholas Weaver:

UC Berkley Homepage
https://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Faculty/Homepages/nweaver.html

Twitter:
https://twitter.com/ncweaver

How to make money with Bitcoin in 10 easy steps!
http://www.buttcoinfoundation.org/how-to-make-money-with-bitcoin-in-10-easy-steps/

Cryptocurrency: Burn it with fire! (Presentation, YouTube Video)
https://www.usenix.org/conference/enigma2019/presentation/weaver

Blog:
https://www.lawfareblog.com/contributors/nweaver

Follow me and my producer on twitter!    
https://twitter.com/milner_aviv
https://twitter.com/gordolven

My Twitter DMs are always open!

Dr. Nicholas Weaver is a senior staff researcher focusing on computer security at the International Computer Science Institute in Berkeley, California, and a lecturer in the Computer Science department at the University of California at Berkeley.

In this first of two parts, Dr. Weaver goes beyond his work of network security and computer vulnerabilities to describe a more pernicious and detrimental aspect of finance: gambling, parimutuel betting and the broad category of zero sum games. But how does this tie in to our favorite industry? Find out more in part 2, where Dr. Weaver ties in the utility and usefulness of "Blockchain" and why the only remedy may be to burn it with fire!

More about Dr. Nicholas Weaver:

UC Berkley Homepage
https://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Faculty/Homepages/nweaver.html

Twitter:
https://twitter.com/ncweaver

Cryptocurrency: Burn it with fire! (Presentation, YouTube Video)
https://www.usenix.org/conference/enigma2019/presentation/weaver

Blog:
https://www.lawfareblog.com/contributors/nweaver

Follow me and my producer on twitter!  

https://twitter.com/milner_aviv
https://twitter.com/gordolven  

My Twitter DMs are always open!

It all started on May 19th of 2021 when Francis Kim made the perfect call to short Bitcoin on the Binance exchange. While the markets tanked, he saw over a 100 thousand USD of profits, but he would soon realize that Binance was not like the exchanges he was familiar with in legacy finance.

A power outage, an exchange that banned the closing of orders... and POOF, all of his 171 thousand dollars vanished.

What started as a simple quest to get what he deserves turned into a rabbit hole of red flags. Francis Kim soon realized that this was not the only issue with Binance. His tweet from August 6th, just a month and a half later, went viral when he revealed the findings of his dive into the largest crypto exchange in the world.

https://twitter.com/franciskim_co/status/1423658703174082567

Join me in the (August 11, 2021) conversation with a man who has risked everything to find the truth, uncover the lies and get justice.

To get engaged with Francis Kim, please check out the following:

https://twitter.com/franciskim_co
http://exposingbinance.com/
http://binanceclaim.com/

Follow me and my producer on twitter!

https://twitter.com/milner_aviv
https://twitter.com/gordolven

A link to the response blog from Binance:
https://www.binance.com/en/blog/421499824684902502/ecosystem/our-commitment-to-responsible-trading-and-combating-distrust


If you want to discuss anything, whether it is a story of loss or an insight on the Binance exchange, my DMs are always open.

Max Hillebrand is more than a freedom-loving student of Austrian economics. If you ever used open-source software in the Bitcoin space, you have likely benefitted in some degree from his work.

Max and I go way back- In 2018 we both saw privacy in Bitcoin as a fundamental problem and a concern that is worth addressing. By no coincidence, he and I crossed paths at an open-source project that claimed to offer an unfair amount of user privacy in Bitcoin transactions (Wasabi Wallet). From there, we quickly became friends and even had the uncommon pleasure of meeting in person in Amsterdam and Taiwan.

This episode I change things up a bit. A lot of proponents of Bitcoin don't feel comfortable, for perhaps obvious reasons, to discuss the systemic risk of Tether. The discussion is typically classified as 'FUD' and the conversation stops before it has even started.

Well not with Max! Max walks valiantly down this path to discuss his thoughts on Tether and how he personally interprets both events from the past and his expectations of the future. He does what a lot of his peers are not able to do, but what he is best at - discussing systemic risks and attack vectors to the Bitcoin ecosystem.

For more on Max Hillebrand:
https://towardsliberty.com
https://twitter.com/HillebrandMax
https://github.com/MaxHillebrand

Follow me on twitter for more episodes!
https://twitter.com/milner_aviv

And as always, this wouldn't be possible without my producer and editor - Gordon Dolven. Check him out on twitter!
https://twitter.com/gordolven

The Nano community has challenged skeptics in a recent twitter exchange (see backstory). The result? A passionate exchange between two minds and a deep dive into $Nano and what it takes to become the ultimate digital cash.

Patrick Luberus is an IT professional by day and holds a masters degree in informational security. Since 2013, he has been thinking deeply about the search for an ideal digital money for the modern world. Although his initial fascination was mostly around Bitcoin, he would later observe the challenges and technical trade-offs that would compel him to investigate a crypto that promised it all- instant, scalable and free. Enter $Nano.

Patrick would then become a much more active member of the Nano community, publishing helpful videos on his YouTube channel covering topics like Byzantine Fault Tolerance, technical challenges and even his second video, where he warns people (in November of 2017) to avoid Bitconnect (the now well understood failed Ponzi Scheme).

This conversation is deep and it covers a lot of aspects. I highly recommend listening to the end, as the trajectory goes to interesting places, but the conclusion is open to interpretation. Patrick has agreed to come back in the future to discuss these ideas further.

Check out those videos here:
https://www.youtube.com/user/PatrickLuberus

Find him on twitter here:
@patrickluberus

Backstory

It started with a podcast episode with a Director of the Nano Foundation.

https://twitter.com/rarlop/status/1420675475530297348

Which inspired a challenge to the skeptics to have a listen.

https://twitter.com/rarlop/status/1420713299155595268

Well, challenge accepted!

https://twitter.com/milner_aviv/status/1420716770483007491

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A huge thank you to my audio editor and official podcast producer Gordon! Lucky to have him help me on short notice. Check him out on twitter: https://twitter.com/gordolven    

Follow me on twitter to stay up to date on the latest!

https://twitter.com/milner_aviv

What exactly happened on Monday morning with #Tether?

You know her from her independent journalistic work on financial fraud in cryptocurrencies that has been published nearly everywhere- Artnet News, Business Insider, The Block, Bitcoin Magazine, Coindesk, Forbes, Modern Consensus, Decrypt and elsewhere! 

You know him from his hilarious best-selling book- Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain and his poorly timed dissection of Facebook's attempt to takeover money- Libra Shrugged.

Amy Castor and David Gerard join me in a deep dig past the completely organic (organic like what comes out the end of a cow) behavior following the leaking of the Tether Target Letter. The original leak was published via Bloomberg and is paywalled here:

https://www.bloomberg.co m/news/articles/2021-07-26/tether-executives-said-to-face-criminal-probe-into-bank-fraud

Castor, with the help of Gerard, published an excellent piece later that day, that both covers the history of the Tether banking issues as well as the meaning of the news that many of us struggled to understand. This discussion surrounds that article:

https://amycastor.com/2021/07/26/the-dojs-criminal-probe-into-tether-what-we-know/

If you enjoyed hearing from the dynamic duo, follow them!

Amy Castor
https://amycastor.com/
https://twitter.com/ahcastor
https://www.reddit.com/user/amycastor/

Support Amy on Patreon!
https://www.patreon.com/amycastor

David Gerard
https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/
https://twitter.com/davidgerard
https://www.reddit.com/user/dgerard/

Find both his books on his website!
https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/book/
https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/libra/

A huge thank you to my audio editor Gordon! Lucky to have him help me on short notice.
Check him out on twitter:
https://twitter.com/gordolven



Follow me on twitter to stay up to date on the latest!

https://twitter.com/milner_aviv

Did you ever wish you had a computer science professor would could ironically and hilariously explain the deceptive trickery of cryptocurrencies? Well, so do we, and if you are a student at the University of Campinas in Brazil, you know what that's like!

Professor Jorge Stolfi is a well cited computer scientist specializing in graph theory, image processing and computational geometry, which gives him the power to shoot lasers out of his nose and take down the masses of rambunctious children that we call crypto-reddit. He understands Bitcoin, almost too well, and likes to educate those of us already 45 thousand dollars deep in credit card debt from Coinbase auto-purchases on why we should think twice about our "investments". Pfft. What would the most cited computer science professor from Brazil know about blockchaining?

We talk at length about the financial nature of cryptocurrencies, non-speculative investments (and their much larger speculative counterparts) and why it may not be the wisest thing to leverage your first born child to get more exposure to Bitcoin. We discuss Tether, Elon Musk, El Salvador, Smart Contracts and so much more!

Introduction Joke - How I Plan to Make Some Easy Money (Stolfi, 2014)
https://www.ic.unicamp.br/~stolfi/bitcoin/2014-02-17-HowToMakeSomeEasyMoney.html
Music - Blue Bossa

Follow all of his hilarious take-downs on twitter, reddit and on the many public debates he has attended!

https://twitter.com/JorgeStolfi  (@JorgeStolfi)
https://www.reddit.com/user/jstolfi (u/jstolfi)

Special thanks to the last minute help from some folks on twitter! Especially @gordolven !

Follow me on twitter (@milner_aviv) and stay tuned for more awesome episodes!

Our favorite journalist and Crypto Critic discusses a healthy approach to skepticism and journalism in a space that very much requires it. Although published one month after the conversation took place (I was moving! Sorry!), the discussion around managing personal bias and responsible means to convey and challenge fraud remain equally valuable today as they did then.

Tether is the largest stable coin in the cryptocurrency space, with more than 60 billion USD equivalent in circulation. It acts as the the shadow bank for a majority of exchanges worldwide, exchanges like Binance and Bitfinex. In 2014 Tether made a promise that each unit of Tether would be 1-to-1 backed by a real dollar. Since then, a lot has changed.

Check out Cas' work on his Medium and by subscribing to Protos:
https://www.protos.com/
https://thecaspiancey.medium.com/

Find him and his partner in crime on twitter:
@CasPiancey
@BennettTomlin
@CryptoCriticPod

Their latest show on investigating the Bitfinex head office is available here:
https://cryptocriticscorner.com/

Want to come on the podcast? Reach out to me at aviv@goodterrain.com

Special thanks to the r/buttcoin community for encouraging skeptical inquiry.
And special thanks to @Bitfinexed

Upcoming podcasts:

Professor Jorge Stolfi!

Follow Matt on twitter: https://twitter.com/vhranger  

Check out Matt's work on his blog: https://www.singlelunch.com/

Subreddit's mentioned:

https://www.reddit.com/r/badeconomics/

https://www.reddit.com/r/Buttcoin/

https://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/

Follow Matt on twitter: 

https://twitter.com/vhranger

Check out Matt's work on his blog: 

https://www.singlelunch.com/

Subreddit's mentioned:

https://www.reddit.com/r/badeconomics/

https://www.reddit.com/r/Buttcoin/

https://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/

In part one of a two part episode, Bennett Tomlin discusses the legal issues, liquidity problems and spotty history surrounding Tether.

Tether is the largest stable coin in the cryptocurrency space, with more than 60 billion USD equivalent in circulation. It acts as the the shadow bank for a majority of exchanges worldwide, exchanges like Binance and Bitfinex. In 2014 Tether made a promise that each unit of Tether would be 1-to-1 backed by a real dollar. Since then, a lot has changed.

Check out Bennett's work on his blog:
https://bennettftomlin.com/

Find him and his partner in crime on twitter:
@BennettTomlin
@CasPiancey
@CryptoCriticPod

Their latest show on Tether and other scams:
https://cryptocriticscorner.com/

Want to come on the podcast? Reach out to me at aviv@blacktieconsultants.com

Special thanks to the r/buttcoin community for encouraging skeptical inquiry.
And special thanks to @Bitfinexed

Upcoming podcasts:

David Gerard
MicroStrategy Inquiries
And more!

A critical discussion on the utility of NFTs with my good friend, Anton Lukashov, an architectural professional and an artist who outlines the challenges of making it as an artist (first 50 minutes). Anton describes how the hype around NFTs compelled him to join a new unregulated industry in the past few months and sell a few pieces online. Although his expectations of NFTs are high, most of the episode confronts many of the claims and leaves us asking if anything was solved at all.

Check out his work (which includes physical prints and paintings) on Instagram and on his website.
https://www.instagram.com/antonlukashov/
https://www.antonlukashov.com/

Want to come on the podcast? Reach out to me at aviv@blacktieconsultants.com

Special thanks to the r/buttcoin community for encouraging skeptical inquiry.

Upcoming podcasts:

Bennett Tomlin speak at length about the Tether scam (spoiler alert, it's a scam)