653: The Kernel Always Wins

Episode 100 celebration! Hopefully more to come!

Happy episode 100! I hope the show keeps being worth you making it, because I sure appreciate listening to it. Banger of an episode 99 too 👍

Congrats on the 100 Chris. How to celebrate? Do whatever you want Chris, just have some fun. A guest sounds like a good idea, or how about some listeners calling in? I’m surprised to hear you say that you’re thinking of stopping at 100. I hope you don’t and I will continue to listen and support as long as you keep going. But you gotta do what feels right for you and your family. May the force be with you.

Welcome back from SCALE! I'm curious if you saw any Bitcoin usage while you were there. I started listening to you because of Linux and then you introduced me to Bitcoin. The reason why I'm so passionate about Bitcoin now are a lot of the same reasons I've been passionate about Linux since 2014 so it seems like it would be a great fit.

A question about nodes and one for Wes. What is Nix Bitcoin? I hear you talk about Nix on LUP, and as I understand it Nix is a distro, but maybe it’s not? And how does Nix Bitcoin fit in? Is it a node implementation? Or not? Help me out with this one please. For Wes: What would it take for more Open Source believers to get into Bitcoin more? I’d love to hear his thoughts on this, hopefully you have some time on the road for some Bitcoin chat. Safe travels.

Has AI affected my job? Yes, in a positive way. I am self employed and take care of clients’ website and e-commerce infrastructure. AI allows me to do way more than before. An example is testing, I use AI to write scripts to automate testing, saves me hours each time. AI helps me troubleshoot issues on tools I have very little experience with. And this is just the beginning, I haven’t even gone deep into the Agent world yet. AI is going to disrupt and create opportunities at the same time. It’s up to all of us to make sure we’re in the right place to benefit.

Boosting another thousand sats to see what the 21000 sats sound bit is.

I've been busy lately, but I sent you a DM on X with the weekly spaces that I do with some friends on Bitcoin mining. Is there a different form of communication you'd prefer? I'm reaching out to some more experienced people I know if they'd like to talk to you about mining. We dropped below 900 exahash! Great time to get into mining!

I wonder if a V4V model would work for Bitcoin educational content? Someone creates a guide for TWIB, if people find value they boost or zap, and the Sats are split between the creator, TWIB and the platform. Kind of like outsourcing the creation of educational content but with zero risk to you. I haven’t seen this model live in the wild but wondered if it could work. What do you think?

I'm willing to go to a Bitcoin meetup if it's relatively close. I'll be going to Mining Disrupt in Dallas/Fort Worth later this year.

Part 2: I’d love to hear more about your node config on Bitcoin Core and what version you’re running. I’ve been holding off upgrading and am still running v28 but as v31 is coming out soon I think I need to upgrade to keep within the maintenance window. What configuration changes have you made to the defaults and what do you suggest for version updates and basic config changes?

+1 for ppq.ai This has been my go to AI for about a year now. It’s built by a Bitcoiner, you get discount when you pay in Sats and if you pay over LN, there’s zero KYC and the built in privacy of Lightning. Use it with a VPN (like Mullvad, also paid for in Sats) and offers pretty good privacy for general use. You can connect via a browser or with API keys. I use it for general topics or learning, not for anything private is sensitive. You can connect to all the latest models and it’s really good value as you pay per query (PPQ). There are more and more online services like this that accept sats and if we’re going to get the world using Bitcoin as money, these are great places to support the global P2P Bitcoin economy.

I don't see any reason why btc couldn't stay under the cost of mining a coin for quite a while. The miners with reserves would keep going, and the small ones wouldn't make it. But my prediction is that it doesn't stay below $60k for long, exactly because this idea is widespread and people will start buying again if it does

Hosted mining is big now if you want the most hashrate for your dollar. If you want a home miner, the Canaan Avalon Q is a great entry point. 90 terahash, looks just like a desktop, and it runs on 120 so no modifications necessary. I co-host a weekly space on X about mining. I can reach out to some of the people I've met there to talk to you and maybe get on the podcast. Just say the word and I'll reach out. I sent you a DM on X last year that has my username.

Keep the value coming Chris. I would love to see podcasting 2.0 replace the paid advertising model. There’s nothing worse than listening to “Bitcoin” podcasters shill treasury companies, custodial services and even telling you not to bother with holding your own keys. (Insert vomit emoji here). Keep it up and May the force be with you.

I saw some people mention that with Bitcoin we can have a "Star Trek future" instead of a "Star Wars future". As the biggest Star Trek fan I know of, what are some episodes, series, or movies I should watch to understand what that Star Trek post scarcity utopia, and do you think this is a good analogy for Bitcoin?

Where do you find the number of nodes on the network? There was a great site called Bitnodes which used to have lots of network info like this but it has recently shut down. Can you explain the difference between a “listening “ node and a non listening node. If the node total includes non listening nodes it’s much higher, so I wanted to find out the difference. Thanks.

I got my second node up and running! I'll be using it to try out some of the stuff y'all talked about on the episode with Wes and Brent. In other news, did you see the politician that said he was mining Bitcoin 20 years ago and only got a fraction of a fraction of a Bitcoin? There's some real low effort grifting going on over there in Vegas.

Thanks for the signal as always. I’m watching some of the Las Vegas conference and it’s so far from the cypherpunk and freedom ideals Bitcoin started from so we need shows like this. Following on from last week, tell us more about what you’d like to do with memberships? Something similar to LUP? Is there a membership model you’ve seen somewhere else you like? Tell us more, we’re the test market, so tell us what you’re thinking brother.

I loved having an episode with Wes and Brent! Now I have so many more things that I want to do with my node!

Loved this format Chris, this would be a great model for a members feed I think. The next step on my node is to set up Alby hub and NWC to connect my Primal wallet to my LND node. I’m still not zapping on Nostr yet (shame). I’d like to hear more about OpenCode. Do you run that in the terminal or with the GUI? Which models do you connect to? You said you use it to ssh into your node to review configs and settings, I’d love to hear more about how you’re using OpenCode to manage your nodes. Thanks.

I keep hearing people say that the sentiment is the lowest it's been in a long time. Personally I don't think the quantum and Epstein stuff is anything more than FUD. Is there anytime that you can remember when sentiment was lower than it is today? +1 to the JB mining pool! I'm down to work on it and then also throw some hashrate at it!

I listened to your summary of OpenClaw on LUP (3 times actually to get my head around it!). What’s your take on the Bitcoin angle here? With agents talking and dealing with each other autonomously, how does Bitcoin fit in to this? We’ve heard that AI agents can’t use fiat, and Bitcoin keys and wallets can be generated and used by agents, is this the moment we actually see this happen? Would love to hear your thoughts on this.

Just food for thought. I do wonder what the eventual effects might be for bitcoin, hopefully positive!

Welcome back for the new year! Whilst I prefer the shows not focused on US-internal politics, I know there'll be some of that, it's only natural for a US based show. If we're talking about the US Fed, though ... what do you think about the NY Fed holding 7000 tonnes of gold on behalf of foreign governments ? After invading Venezuela, the US might be able to steal its bitcoin reserves, or maybe not. The gold in NY is much easier to steal. If I wanted a sovereign reserve, I know where I'd look!

Love the track! Nice pick, Chris. Filoxera: love it

Ha ha, I like it! Calling out “piss-poor hiring practices” as the cause for layoffs and the Fed’s strategy for curbing inflation of “trying really hard”. This is the way! I appreciated your video on BIP444, man that is out there. How does everyone feel about Knots now I wonder?

This seems a very accurate description of btc to me, and also one which depends on two things: btc being hard money, and btc being usable as money for trade.

Trying to keep it short: Money used for Money-Commodity-Money trades is capital. This is how an industrialist uses money. Contrast this to the Commodity-Money-Commodity use of money by say a poor farmer.

It's interesting that you ask if Saylor is downplaying btc as an asset, when the clip you played has him describing it as capital. In classical political economy, capital is a specific role played by hard money.

I enjoyed Ep 100 a lot and am happy to hear you’ll keep going. Don’t know where my week would be without TWIB Thursdays! I want to ask you a question. Imagine you had a team of 5 (humans and/or agents) working on TWIB full time. What would you want them to do and what would your vision for TWIB be? What would it look like? What do you wish TWIB had right now? Some food for thought. Thanks for the signal, and the sound fx, I love the sound fx!

I'm still running Knots, but I'm deliberately not signaling for BIP-110. I have a Bitaxe solo mining with Datum Gateway, but won't be moving a large amount of my hashrate to Ocean at least until after all this settlles down. If spam is as much of an issue as Luke and Mechanic state, why does the majority of the network not agree with them? Either fix the spam issue permanently, or let it be. A temporary soft fork is just an unnecessary way for them to feel like they got a win after they lost the fight against Core v30.

The bear market getting you down? BIP110 doing your head in? Well here’s just what you need, all of you! A Bitcoin meetup in New Zealand. We run these really relaxed and friendly meetups, called Bitkiwi, three times a year and all Bitcoiners are welcome. We often have overseas Bitcoiners come along too. The next one is real soon, we’ll let you off Chris cos I know you’re at Planet Nix. But next time. Everyone welcome! https://kiwibitcoinguide.org/home/bitkiwi-meetups/bitkiwi-x…

Texas just bought 10 million dollars worth of Bitcoin. Proud to be a Texan. Just wish it was real sats instead of IBIT. Baby steps.

I make a regular DCA buy at the same time of every month, for the same amount. I don’t try to time peaks or dips, I just buy, consolidate and move to cold storage. It works for me: keep it simple, remove the emotion, get in a regular routine, store you “savings” in cold storage. Tick, tock…

You want to know how a raise would get processed by the economy? Well I'd increase my DCA. Also would have a bit more for smash buys when the price drops. There's also talks of a $2000 stimmy coming in. That should cover the cost of a Canaan Avalon Q and a few months of electricity. So I guess both of them would get processed as more sats in my wallet.

Every month I add a little extra to my regular DCA and keep it in a mobile wallet for spending. I want Bitcoin to be money, so want to make that a reality. There aren’t too many merchants who accept Bitcoin around me, but not zero. I pay for my haircuts and always support cafes and restaurants who accept it. If I find a merchant who accepts Sats in a place I visit, I make a point of going there and spending sats. I also pay for as many online services as I can in Sats: Proton, Mullvad and ppq.ai are examples. And boosts of course! This is how I do it.

I have a goal of getting to 1 BTC. I have DCA setup and a hardware wallet, but as I look more into price targets that people set, I feel like I need to stack faster than I can normally DCA. I feel like I'm going crazy trying to find ways that I can stack faster with mining, loans, treasury companies, etc. As someone whose been in Bitcoin for a long time, do you think I'm focusing too much on an arbitrary goal and I should just stay humble and stack when I can? I'm 29 for context.

Double boost for this and the episode with Oscar. Conversations with people like Oscar who are creating real use cases for Bitcoin are great. Is there a way to connect my LND node to Fountain? Can I do this with Alby hub? I’d love to connect directly and not have to manually top up my Fountain wallet if I could. Keep the signal coming, thanks.

What do I think of BIP444? If you’re interested, read the original BIP, understand it properly then make your own judgement. Too many Bitcoiners are just listening to their favorite influencer and picking a side to support. The BIP makes no reference to a decision being made to determine if arbitrary data is objectionable. The BIP lists 7 Op Codes or conditions which would further restrict arbitrary data at the consensus level. I think Matthew Kratter picked that ball up and ran with it himself for some shock value. This BIP seems unlikely to have legs, but if we’re going to debate it we should at least understand it properly. My 2 sats worth. (Bonus boost for “nose candy Mark” in the last ep. I approve!)

Linux and Bitcoin do go well together! I've been listening to you since 2014 and bought Bitcoin for the first time 2 years ago just to boost the shows because I wanted to support JB. I've only gotten orange pilled this year after doing the research. I wish I was there for the Plan B days. I remember awhile ago you and Alan sold Bitcoin to buy a server. I wonder how much that server costs now in fiat fun bucks given today's Bitcoin price...

Add this to the previous boost. Got fat fingered in my rage! And while I’m at it, did Bitcoin maxi culture fail? 100%, yes. It failed. NVK and his mates personified it and look what happened.

If I think back to all the BS “podcasters” spouted about “don’t trust, verify” and all that crap, without doing it themselves, it makes me feel sick. V4V pods with zero paid ads is the only way we’ll get reliable information. As they say “show me the incentives and I’ll show you the outcome”. Turns out they were right. Keep it up Chris. Thanks.

Part 2: Do you see any opportunities in the Bitcoin education space through TWIB? Memberships and courses, educational content? And are there any ways to “open source” any of this via V4V community contributions or something like that? I see why you’ve done with Linux Unplugged and wonder if it’s possible to do a TWIB version of this. Anyway, some thoughts to ponder. Your show drops on Thursday in my part of the world, and I always look forward to “TWIB Thursdays” now.

Hey Chris It was interesting to hear you say that you look at each of your shows as businesses. Tell us more about the vision for TWIB. Do you see it following the same path as LUP, with V4V, memberships and bonus content, but no paid ads? Are there other unique things you’re considering for TWIB? TBC in the next boost.

Five years ago Michael Saylor created a 20 part podcast series with Robert Breedlove, he talked about history and first principles. I listened to it twice and it helped me deepen my understanding of Bitcoin and build conviction. I shared it with friends. Now when I listen to him talk I don’t even understand what the words mean. I do not share any of his talks with Bitcoin newbies any more. He’s a different guy focusing on different things. Good luck to him, I’m just glad I came across the old Saylor when I did.

I'd bet Saylor's selling btc is because of whatever Galaxy Brain thing I don't understand that separates what he's doing from a Ponzi scheme. But if it's not that, maybe it's simple? Buy low sell high, and he's betting against a hot bitcoin summer?

Speaking of node-ing up, I was looking the mempool of my node during block 919953 which was also during the AWS outage. I was confused why a block would be taking almost 6 times as long as it should be. The best thesis I can come up with is maybe the big pools use AWS for orchestration software. Is there a better explanation that you could think of, or am I just inexperienced and don't realize these anomalies just happen sometimes? Also odd that after almost an hour, it gets mined by an unknown solo miner.

Node Up Bitcoiners. We all gotta do it. Here’s a guide from our community website in New Zealand, just published to help all Bitcoiners run their own node. Right up your alley Chris, running straight on Ubuntu. https://kiwibitcoinguide.org/articles-and-guides/setup-bitc…

Happy new year! My goals for 2026 are to fill in the gaps of my knowledge when it comes to self custody and mining. I also plan hit hit the 1 petahash milestone between home miners and hosted.

I have a serious question for you. I recently listened to an interview with the Samurai wallet dev who has been sentenced to 5 years prison for writing open source software. In the interview he talked about how his constitutional rights were not respected and how hostile the judge was. They had no evidence of an actual crime being committed, so the charges are for “conspiracy” to commit crimes. Basically, as they were “aware” that their software could be used for illegal purposes, they’re guilty of conspiring to commit that crime. This is pretty scary, does this mean any open source dev could be guilty of a similar crime? With your background in FOSS and Linux, I’d like to hear your thoughts on this. Here’s the interview for anyone interested. Also a V4V pod with no ads. https://fountain.fm/episode/EOObZmKyTCz2UM5wEnf0 @nevent1qvzqqqp…

Part 2… When sentiment is low (and fuck me, it is as low as I have ever seen it), my happy place is a deep technical rabbit hole. When the price is crashing or the sky falling in, work on your skills and learn new things. Like running your own node on a self hosted Linux server. This week I’m hardening my node and learning all about reverse proxies. It really is the gift that keeps on giving and if you don’t get rich off Bitcoin, you’ll have some valuable skills to hit the job market with!

Bitcoin meetups and events are the best. Meeting other Bitcoiners IRL is like being reunited with old friends. I attend all the meetups and events I can and even travel to some. I would definitely attend a TWIB event. Thanks for the quality content every week, and for the laughs too! Gotta keep smiling (and stacking) through the bear :)

I love video for technical tutorials but prefer audio for news and interviews. How about some detailed video content on a technical topic, perhaps available as bonus content? Video content would involve more effort for you, so putting that effort towards evergreen technical content would mean it sticks around longer. Thanks for the in depth content and the research you put into every show. (+1 vote for the Alby hub deep dive with Wes)

I've been enjoying the balance of the show recently, keep up the good work!

I’d like to hear more about places to use Bitcoin as money. Especially any online services you use or are aware of. I know there are VPNs, Email services and AI aggregators who accept sats. Any more? I’ve always thought using sats to support Open Source projects and developers should be an easy win. Thanks

Part 2: A listener shared this website, which has some excellent explainers and guides on wallets, entropy, keys, seeds and more. Awesome resource, all tools are free to use under the MIT license. https://selfcustodylabs.com/

My question last week was more about generating the seed phrase and checksum in an offline way. I rolled the dice so can get the entropy offline, but wonder how to generate and verify the actual seed words and checksum. It seems like that part is harder to do in a truely offline way. Do you have any tips on that? Thanks.

Re your question on which platform to do a Knots tutorial on, I would say it has to be Linux of some flavor. You’re the Linux guy so asking you to do it on another platform would be blasphemy! I was a Bitcoiner before getting into Linux and other open protocols. I really think Bitcoiners should embrace the full open source stack, it’s part of the trade off for having open source, immutable money.

I would be interested in hearing your guide on setting up Knots on Start9. I got Knots setup on Umbrel this weekend and that was incredibly easy. I hear people I respect use Start9, but I don't see the appeal to it. Seems like it has less applications and still has the same hardware limitations.

Hey Chris. I want to echo some of the other comments here and say that TWIB is a highlight of my week and that the signal and value you provide is awesome. The fact that you live and breathe Open Source and live off V4V means the content is of the highest quality. It seems like all the other Bitcoin pods have either lost their values, sold out to advertisers or just gone bat shit crazy, so we need you here buddy. I’d like to see more of the membership for TWIB and think there must be opportunities there for you. An Open Source Bitcoin community centered around TWIB, learning new skills and helping each other out, I’d be a part of that. Over and out.

I will resort to bribing if I must. More Bitcoin fiction into my ears!

It's been awhile since I've checked in with the lunch. Hope y'all are doing great and cooking up some delicious recipes! I do miss Brunch with Brent. Sad he's going through a bit of a villain arc now.

I also have a serious question for you. I recently listened to an interview with the Samurai wallet dev who has been sentenced to 5 years prison for writing open source software. In the interview he talked about how his constitutional rights were not respected and how hostile the judge was. They had no evidence of an actual crime being committed, so the charges are for “conspiracy” to commit crimes. Basically, as they were “aware” that their software could be used for illegal purposes, they’re guilty of conspiring to commit that crime. This is pretty scary, does this mean any open source dev could be guilty of a similar crime? With your background in FOSS and Linux, I’d like to hear what you think about this? https://fountain.fm/episode/GgxUJOIxjJ96e0YFuVO2 Here’s the interview for anyone interested. Also a V4V pod with no ads.

Yes, my nephew did complete his sats quest. I made it easy for him by loading up a Lightning wallet and telling him about a bar where he lives which accepts sats. Told him he has to take some friends and shout them a drink with the Sats. And offered some additional cold storage sats as a “reward” once the quest was completed. Incentives at work :)

Belated boost for this, and other episodes. So much of what Dash talked about resonated with me. Running multiple nodes, disappointment in Bitcoiners and looking for answers somewhere else. Thanks for the thought provoking conversations Cody.