017 - Max Hillebrand: The Price of Privacy, Open Source Freedom & Bitcoin

<p>Today I’m talking with Max Hillebrand. </p> <p>Max is a well-known privacy and Bitcoin activist who is also the CEO of zkSNACKs, the company who’s flagship product is the privacy oriented Bitcoin wallet, Wasabi Wallet.</p> <p>Max spoke in depth about privacy and self-sovereignty at last year’s <em>Liberty in our Lifetime</em> conference and this conversation follows in a similar vein. We begin with a few stories from his time working at Deutsche Bank but the conversation quickly moves on to open source software, Bitcoin and of course privacy.</p> <p>We discuss many of the practical aspects of privacy tech, including how GitHub works, methods for anonymising bitcoin transactions, blockchain surveillance and the privacy implications of Bitcoin’s lightning network.</p> <p>Max also makes some fascinating predictions about the far distant future of the Bitcoin network … certainly some things that I, for one had never contemplated before.</p> <p>Enjoy the conversation</p> <p>AI Generated Summary:</p> <p>0:10 - Introduction to this episode</p> <p>3:33 - How did you become interested in economics and banking?</p> <p>5:57 - Falling down the Bitcoin rabbit hole at Deutsche Bank</p> <p>12:23 - What did you learn from the bank?</p> <p>15:19 - What does anarchy mean to you?</p> <p>21:52 - The power to change code</p> <p>28:37 - The difference between Git and GitHub</p> <p>32:29 - Where is the source code of bitcoin on GitHub?</p> <p>37:48 - The importance of privacy in banking</p> <p>40:22 - Definition of privacy</p> <p>45:33 - What do we want to prevent with Bitcoin?</p> <p>51:01 - Explain how privacy tools work on the blockchain</p> <p>56:21 - How does a bitcoin transaction work?</p> <p>1:00:29 - The cost of a single transaction</p> <p>1:08:58 - How much does it cost to use coinjoin?</p> <p>1:13:21 - What’s the legality of what you’re doing?</p> <p>1:17:30 - What is the attack vector on privacy?</p> <p>1:20:49 - The legality of using a wallet</p> <p>1:28:09 - What are the percentages of people making illicit coinjoins?</p> <p>1:33:12 - Centralised vs decentralised</p> <p>1:42:59 - How do wallets decide which coins to spend?</p> <p>1:49:38 - The second layer of the monetary system</p> <p>1:55:10 - Opening lightning channels</p> <p>2:00:15 - Custodial wallets vs. money warehouses</p> <p>2:04:58 - Federated money warehouses and Bitcoin</p> <p>2:30:58 - What are your thoughts on other cryptocurrency coins?</p> <p>2:37:28 - Bitcoin is not inevitable</p> <p>2:44:52 - Hashing power and mining</p> <p>2:51:30 - What would you do if money was no object?</p> <p>LINKS:</p> <p>Liberty In Our Lifetime 2023: <a href="https://libertyinourlifetime.org/">https://libertyinourlifetime.org/</a></p> <p>TWITTER:</p> <p>Max Hillebrand: <a href="https://twitter.com/HillebrandMax">https://twitter.com/HillebrandMax</a></p> <p>Timothy Allen: <a href="https://twitter.com/MrTimothyAllen">https://twitter.com/MrTimothyAllen</a></p> <p>WEBSITES:</p> <p>Max Hillebrand: <a href="https://towardsliberty.com/">https://towardsliberty.com/</a></p> <p>Max's GitHub: <a href="https://github.com/MaxHillebrand">https://github.com/MaxHillebrand</a></p> <p>zkSNACKs: <a href="https://zksnacks.com/">https://zksnacks.com/</a></p> <p>Free Cities Foundation: <a href="https://free-cities.org/">https://free-cities.org/</a></p>