"What distinguishes this speculative attack from its Weimar predecessor is that now - thanks to Bitcoin, Bitcoin Treasuries, Money Printer Go Brrr memes, and social media - it is nearly impossible for public opinion to misconstrue the economic consequences of the inflation. The speculative attack has evolved from a relatively obscure trading strategy during the Weimar Republic into a coordinated, full-fledged social media-mediated and Wall Street-assisted assault on the monopoly of state-issued money itself."
~ Be Water

We’ve entered a world where perception overtakes reality, and debt is the new weapon in a monetary war. I break down the first part of The Speculative Attack series, connecting it to everything from Weimar inflation to the hollowed-out middle class—and ask the question: are Bitcoin treasuries the future of sound money, or the next crack-up boom?

Check out the original article Bitcoin Treasury Companies: Speculative Attack! Part I by Be Water (Link: https://bewaterltd.com/p/bitcoin-treasury-companies)

Links & References

• The Flight into Fake Values by Be Water (Link: https://bewaterltd.com/p/the-flight-into-fake-values)
• Speculative Attack by Pierre Rochard (2014) (Link: https://nakamotoinstitute.org/mempool/speculative-attack/)
• Speculative Attack Season 2 by Pierre Rochard and Allan Farrington (2023) (Link: https://www.axiombtc.capital/attack)
• Broken Money Revisited: Advancing Lyn Alden's Gold & Bitcoin Thesis (Memetic Monetary Theory) (Link: https://bewaterltd.com/p/broken-money)
• Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet by Julian Assange (Link: https://tinyurl.com/y33tr22c)

Check out our awesome sponsors!

• Ledn: Need fiat but don’t want to sell your Bitcoin? Ledn offers secure, Bitcoin-backed loans with no credit checks, flexible repayment, and fast turnaround—often within 24 hours. With $10B+ in loans across 100+ countries and transparent Proof of Reserves, Ledn is a trusted option for unlocking liquidity without giving up your Bitcoin. (Link: https://learn.ledn.io/audible)
• HRF: The Human Rights Foundation is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that promotes and protects human rights globally, with a focus on closed societies. Subscribe to HRF's Financial Freedom Newsletter today. (Link: https://mailchi.mp/hrf.org/financial-freedom-newsletter)
• OFF: The Oslo Freedom Forum is a global human rights event by the Human Rights Foundation (HRF), uniting voices from activism, journalism, tech, and beyond. Through powerful stories and collaboration, OFF advances freedom and human potential worldwide. Join us next June. (Link: https://oslofreedomforum.com/)
• Pubky: Pubky is building the next web, a decentralized system designed to put control back in your hands. Escape censorship, algorithmic manipulation, and walled gardens by owning your identity and data. Explore the Pubky web and become the algorithm today. Don't forget to find me on my Pubky ID here: pk:5d7thwzkxx5mz6gk1f19wfyykr6nrwzaxri3io7ahejg1z74qngo. (Link: https://pubky.org)

"If you have this disconnect between Core devs that value one thing and the users that value something else, something's got to give at some point, right? Either you get developers that are more in line with the users or a lot of the other users kind of end up leaving and so on.
So this is not a trivial concern and it's a big attack
surface and we've seen it in these communities where a lot of this political stuff enters and then next thing you know it gets completely sort of subsumed by that movement, by institutional capture, if you will.
And that's not just true in open source software, it's true in every nonprofit organization and so on.
This is a big problem."
~ Jimmy Song

Jimmy Song joins me for a deep dive into one of the most heated topics in Bitcoin today - the debate around Bitcoin Core, the OP_RETURN controversy, and the growing cultural divide within Bitcoin development. We explore whether Bitcoin’s technical decisions have become political moves, and what “verify, don’t trust” really means when trust itself starts eroding.

We talk about Bitcoin’s identity crisis between innovation and ossification - should Bitcoin keep evolving with new toys, or hold the line and protect what already works? We cover everything from Taproot’s legacy to mining decentralization, censorship, left–right polarization in the dev community, and the spirit of cypherpunk independence.

Most importantly, Jimmy challenges us to think for ourselves - to stop being clones of whoever we agree with, and to test every assumption against reality. Because Bitcoin’s strength has never been in consensus for its own sake, but in the willingness to ask hard questions.

Check out our awesome sponsors!

• Ledn: Need fiat but don’t want to sell your Bitcoin? Ledn offers secure, Bitcoin-backed loans with no credit checks, flexible repayment, and fast turnaround—often within 24 hours. With $10B+ in loans across 100+ countries and transparent Proof of Reserves, Ledn is a trusted option for unlocking liquidity without giving up your Bitcoin. (Link: https://learn.ledn.io/audible)
• HRF: The Human Rights Foundation is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that promotes and protects human rights globally, with a focus on closed societies. Subscribe to HRF's Financial Freedom Newsletter today. (Link: https://mailchi.mp/hrf.org/financial-freedom-newsletter)
• OFF: The Oslo Freedom Forum is a global human rights event by the Human Rights Foundation (HRF), uniting voices from activism, journalism, tech, and beyond. Through powerful stories and collaboration, OFF advances freedom and human potential worldwide. Join us next June. (Link: https://oslofreedomforum.com/)
• Pubky: Pubky is building the next web, a decentralized system designed to put control back in your hands. Escape censorship, algorithmic manipulation, and walled gardens by owning your identity and data. Explore the Pubky web and become the algorithm today. Don't forget to find me on my Pubky ID here: pk:5d7thwzkxx5mz6gk1f19wfyykr6nrwzaxri3io7ahejg1z74qngo. (Link: https://pubky.org)
• Chroma: Chroma is dedicated to advancing human performance and well-being through cutting-edge light therapy devices and performance eyewear. Their mission is to enhance physical and mental health, unlocking peak human health, cognitive function, and physical performance. Get 10% off your order with the code BITCOINAUDIBLE...

"Payments are the camcorders of our age, the next technology whose time has passed. The new age that is just beginning will feel qualitatively different, like the moment Dorothy steps out of her black-and-white world into the vibrant colors of Oz. When value flows as freely as information, the economy changes, and society changes with it."
~ Roy Sheinfeld

What happens when money moves as freely as a text message? This episode dives into Roy Sheinfeld’s vision of Bitcoin not just as an asset - but as the network that commoditizes value transfer itself. I explore how this shift could dissolve borders, upend the legacy payments stack, and unlock a new creator economy built directly on Lightning.

Check out the original article The Utility of Bitcoin: Moving Value Like Information by Roy Sheinfeld (Link: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/technical/the-utility-of-bitcoin-moving-value-like-information)

Links Referenced:

• Breez (Link: Breez.tech)
• Breez SDK (Link: https://breez.technology/sdk/)
• Alby + NWC [Start9 integration] (Link: https://tinyurl.com/yzhwf6t6)
• PearDrive Core (Link: https://github.com/peardrive/PearDriveCore)
• PearDrive CLI (Link: https://github.com/peardrive/PearDriveCLI)
• Zero to One by Peter Thiel [PDF] (Link: https://morfene.com/021.pdf)
• Secrets of Sand Hill Road: Venture Capital and How to Get it by Scott Kupor (Link: https://a16z.com/books/secrets-of-sand-hill-road/)
• Arc / Spark / Fedi / Botanix / Cashu

Check out our awesome sponsors!

• Ledn: Need fiat but don’t want to sell your Bitcoin? Ledn offers secure, Bitcoin-backed loans with no credit checks, flexible repayment, and fast turnaround—often within 24 hours. With $10B+ in loans across 100+ countries and transparent Proof of Reserves, Ledn is a trusted option for unlocking liquidity without giving up your Bitcoin. (Link: https://learn.ledn.io/audible)
• HRF: The Human Rights Foundation is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that promotes and protects human rights globally, with a focus on closed societies. Subscribe to HRF's Financial Freedom Newsletter today. (Link: https://mailchi.mp/hrf.org/financial-freedom-newsletter)
• OFF: The Oslo Freedom Forum is a global human rights event by the Human Rights Foundation (HRF), uniting voices from activism, journalism, tech, and beyond. Through powerful stories and collaboration, OFF advances freedom and human potential worldwide. Join us next June. (Link: https://oslofreedomforum.com/)
• Pubky: Pubky is building the next web, a decentralized system designed to put control back in your hands. Escape censorship, algorithmic manipulation, and walled gardens by owning your identity and data. Explore the Pubky web and become the algorithm today. Don't forget to find me on my Pubky ID here: pk:5d7thwzkxx5mz6gk1f19wfyykr6nrwzaxri3io7ahejg1z74qngo. (Link: https://pubky.org)
• Chroma: Chroma...