Josh, AKA Secure Sovereign, joins the Bitcoin Infinity Show to talk about Bitcoin Core governance, the case for alternative node implementations, and Bitcoin Commons, a new Rust implementation he says specifies and locks down Bitcoin consensus while making it far easier to fork and run your own node. Josh recovered a life-changing stack of Bitcoin he had held since 2010, then turned to analyzing Bitcoin Core as an informal oligarchy, running a full-chain analysis of BIP-110 across more than 900,000 blocks and building selective synchronization so node runners can skip non-monetary data. The conversation covers self-custody, consensus specification, mining decentralization, the spam debate, and a commons-based governance model drawn from Ostrom and the Hanseatic League aimed at keeping Bitcoin sound money.

Connect with Secure Sovereign:

https://x.com/secsovereign

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https://www.bitcoininfinityshow.com/

https://bitcoininfinitystore.com

https://primal.net/infinity

https://primal.net/knut

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https://twitter.com/BtcInfinityShow

https://twitter.com/knutsvanholm

https://twitter.com/lukedewolf

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The Bitcoin Infinity Show is a Bitcoin podcast hosted by Knut Svanholm and produced by Luke de Wolf.

Bitcoin Mechanic joins the Bitcoin Infinity Show to talk about BIP-110, the minority soft fork now activating on hard mode, and why he believes node runners rather than miners ultimately control the network. Drawing on his front-row view of the 2017 block size wars, he breaks down the game theory that pushes miners toward enforcing new consensus rules, the UTXO bloat and OP_RETURN abuse that motivated the fork, and how Ocean, Datum, and hash rate renting are quietly redecentralizing Bitcoin mining. The conversation closes on a reframing of censorship resistance and self-custody, arguing that keeping Bitcoin usable as money is itself the point of resisting chain bloat.

Connect with Mechanic:

https://x.com/GrassFedBitcoin

Connect with Us:

https://www.bitcoininfinityshow.com/

https://bitcoininfinitystore.com

https://primal.net/infinity

https://primal.net/knut

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https://twitter.com/BtcInfinityShow

https://twitter.com/knutsvanholm

https://twitter.com/lukedewolf

Thanks to our sponsors - check out their websites for info:

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Bitcoin Adviser: https://content.thebitcoinadviser.com/freedom

The Bitcoin Infinity Show is a Bitcoin podcast hosted by Knut Svanholm and produced by Luke de Wolf.

Max Hillebrand joins the Bitcoin Infinity Show to talk about his new book The Praxeology of Privacy and why privacy sits at the foundation of sound money, self-custody, and the entire cypherpunk project. The conversation traces the prehistory of Bitcoin from David Chaum's anonymous eCash through Hal Finney's proof of work, explains how surveillance distorts prices the same way money printing does, and digs into the tools that make resistance cheap, including CoinJoin, the Lightning Network, and the new White Noise messaging protocol over Noster. Along the way Max makes the case that defending your privacy is far cheaper than attacking it, and that widespread Bitcoin adoption paired with strong privacy could end financial coercion faster than most people think.

Connect with Max:

https://towardsliberty.com/

Connect with Us:

https://www.bitcoininfinityshow.com/

https://bitcoininfinitystore.com

https://primal.net/infinity

https://primal.net/knut

https://primal.net/luke

https://twitter.com/BtcInfinityShow

https://twitter.com/knutsvanholm

https://twitter.com/lukedewolf

Thanks to our sponsors - check out their websites for info:

Firefish: https://firefish.io/ - Use Code INFINITY!

Bull Bitcoin: https://app.bullbitcoin.com/registration/infinity

BitBox: https://bitbox.swiss/infinity - Use Code INFINITY for 5% off!

Bitcoin Adviser: https://content.thebitcoinadviser.com/freedom

The Bitcoin Infinity Show is a Bitcoin podcast hosted by Knut Svanholm and produced by Luke de Wolf.