Plebchain Radio

<p>Guest host <strong>Aaron of Essex</strong> takes the Sunday Brunch wheel again and welcomes <strong>Nat Cole</strong> for a lively, music-first conversation about building a <strong>“new music economy”</strong> on a Bitcoin standard. Nat frames the idea carefully: not just another platform or “ecosystem,” but a permissionless economic layer where artists can participate without gatekeepers, own more of their rails, and connect more directly with listeners.</p> <p>From there, the episode opens into Nat’s origin story: a childhood split between <strong>music and computing</strong>, with a Jamaican sound-system lineage on one side, early internet tinkering on the other, and formative years spent around studios, sound engineering, youth projects, pirate-tech curiosity, and anti-establishment energy that made Bitcoin’s freedom ethos click hard once he finally understood it.</p> <p>A big center of gravity is <strong>2140 Music</strong>, Nat’s culture-maxi bridge between legacy music and Bitcoin rails. He describes it as part education hub, part events engine, part curation/bookings layer, built to help artists understand the tools, perform live, and find real opportunities in Bitcoin-adjacent spaces rather than just getting dumped into the deep ocean of Spotify-style discovery. The recurring theme is that the goal is not simply to preach “leave Spotify,” but to help artists <strong>add sovereign tools to their stack</strong> and gradually own more of their infrastructure.</p> <p>Along the way, Aaron and Nat spin a five-track set from the 2140 orbit, including music from <strong>Air Klipz, Andy Prince, G-O-L-D, Sites,</strong> and <strong>Acme</strong>, using each song as a doorway into the artists, the camp, and the wider mission. One highlight is <strong>“Buffalo Gals,”</strong> which Nat describes as the unofficial mascot track for 2140 Music, anchored by the refrain that they “came to change the game.”</p> <p>The closing stretch turns practical and forward-looking: Nat previews <strong>Bitcoin Graffiti Jam</strong> in Brixton/Stockwell, more intimate education/community events, and a continued push to build new bridges from the fiat music world into an uncapturable network where artists can actually own the relationship with their audience.</p> <p><strong>Links</strong></p> <ul> <li><a href="https://2140art.com/">2140 Art</a></li> <li><a href="https://primal.net/p/nprofile1qqsg8nw7q26ts3lmxleyykel0gq54gelhamp6dh0sxnxdagup3zrd7gus2zt7">Nat on Nostr</a></li> <li><a href="https://bitcoinessex.co.uk/new-music-nudge-unit/">New Music Nudge Unit</a></li> <li><a href="https://primal.net/p/nprofile1qqsvgj4kam4n5rjatjxc46p2ltgw89aal0yjqrta3lp7u99xn60hgrq5w3sr2">Aaron on Nostr</a></li> </ul>

<p>Episode 157 opens with Avi’s sermon <strong>“The Forgotten Forge,”</strong> a meditation on what happens when a civilization outsources the making of the things that keep it alive. The frame is applied directly to Bitcoin: early on, acquiring BTC and producing it were effectively the same act, but convenience split buyers from builders, and the network has been living with that fracture ever since.</p> <p>Kent Halliburton, CEO of <strong>Saz Mining</strong>, joins to argue that this split is one of Bitcoin’s under-discussed fault lines. He traces his own path from a decade in the solar industry, through burnout and a Portugal walkabout, into Bitcoin and eventually mining, where he came to see mining as the “hashpunk” counterpart to the ledger’s cypherpunk side. His core mission with Saz Mining is to make <strong>sat-based acquisition through mining</strong> accessible to normal people rather than leaving production to specialists and institutions.</p> <p>A big chunk of the episode is devoted to Kent’s “<strong>hidden history</strong>” thesis: the 2013 combination of ASIC specialization and Coinbase convenience created a fork in how people acquire Bitcoin. One path led to buyers, the other to producers, and over time those became culturally separate worlds. Kent argues that Bitcoiners failed to think through the downstream consequences of surrendering majority hashrate, while the mining industry failed to earn the trust of Bitcoin-native users with products that felt sovereign, legible, and easy to use.</p> <p>From there the conversation gets practical: Saz’s hosted-ownership model, mining pool payout tradeoffs, the meaning of <strong>“wild sats”</strong> mined straight from the network, and the dangers of pool concentration, especially with Foundry and Antpool commanding an outsized share of global hashpower. Kent’s answer is simple but demanding: more proof of work from actual Bitcoiners, and less passive dependence on fiat-native public mining companies.</p> <p>There is also a rich side-thread through the geopolitics of energy and place: solar incentives and greenwashing, hydro-powered mining in Paraguay, Norway, and Ethiopia, plus reflections on Portugal, Peru, and the cultural textures of life on a Bitcoin standard outside the U.S. orbit.</p> <p><strong>Executive Producer:</strong> <a href="https://primal.net/richardgreaser">Richard Greaser</a></p> <p><strong>Links</strong></p> <ul> <li><a href="https://www.sazmining.com/">Sazming</a></li> <li><a href="https://primal.net/p/nprofile1qqsd0mkr73h9rts2glt732mah9w8mzj2xv7pctmjg9549tpzmk8crzq6c6779">Kent on Nostr</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/July-18-Avi-Burra/dp/B0G12PPTCM">Avi's New Book – July 18</a></li> <li><a href="https://indeehub.studio/film/finding-home/season/1/episode/3">Finding Home Episode 3 – Paraguay</a> [IndeeHub Code: <strong>PIONEER21</strong> ]</li> <li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/24-Avi-Burra/dp/B0CN9NRNNB/ref=sr*1*1?crid=27RW9P8JQ4YMV&keywords=avi+burra+24&qid=1700327391&sprefix=avi+burra+24%2Caps%2C122&sr=8-1%5D(https://www.amazon.com/24-Avi-Burra/dp/B0CN9NRNNB/ref=sr11?crid=27RW9P8JQ4YMV&keywords=avi+burra+24&qid=1700327391&sprefix=avi+burra+24%2Caps%2C122&sr=8-1">Avi's First Book – 24 (2nd Edition)</a></li> </ul>

<p>Sunday Brunch #11 is a relaxed, music-first decompression chamber with Buttercup Roberts at the table: coffee poured, no sermon, no script, and the Value-for-Value house rule intact, where 90% of sats streamed during songs goes directly to the artist. Buttercup brings a playlist built through deep dives on WaveLake and Nostr, using the episode to reflect on how direct zaps can create a real feeling of connection between listener and musician in a world usually clogged with intermediaries.</p> <p>The conversation ranges across Buttercup’s wider creative world. She shares her film background, her love of storytelling’s emotional power, and her growing disenchantment with the modern film industry’s shift from immersive movies toward disposable “content.” That opens naturally into talk about The Bridge, her parallel Nostr project using comics, characters, and visual storytelling to make privacy, censorship, data rights, and digital freedom more legible to everyday people.</p> <p>A big middle section focuses on discovery, onboarding, and the UX challenge in open music ecosystems. Avi and Buttercup compare WaveLake and Fountain, discuss how hard it still is for normal people to browse music intuitively, and zoom out to the broader Nostr problem: how do you onboard artists and non-Bitcoiners into a network that is still culturally dominated by Bitcoin-native conversation? Their answer is less about hiding the ethos and more about building compelling creative entry points around art, identity, and sovereignty.</p> <p>That leads into Bitcoin for the Arts, where Buttercup discusses the initiative’s mission to fund artists across disciplines, not necessarily for explicitly “Bitcoin” art, but for work that carries the ethos into culture through story, symbolism, and emotional resonance. The episode closes in a playful, ambitious place: imagining grants, murals, scavenger hunts, and global artistic treasure maps as ways to make the parallel culture feel alive, participatory, and worth showing up for.</p> <p><strong>Links</strong></p> <ul> <li><a href="https://primal.net/p/nprofile1qqsvwmhguqve9gxh64xlvwrq6wy0vf4rj6veeqx5s5n9t4pc6c7sp3q482uu9">The Bridge on Nostr</a></li> <li><a href="https://fountain.fm/playlist/yIsYcoGIs4VsjCeZ9vRR">Today's Playlist</a></li> </ul>

<p>Plebchain Radio Ep. 156 is part sermon, part game-theory lab, part cultural weather report. Avi opens with “The Price of a Voice,” using Primal’s new zap polls to explore a bigger idea: when voting has a real cost, consensus stops being cheap theater and starts becoming an economy of conviction. In the context of Maxi Madness, that means last-minute snipes, whale zaps, coalition strategy, and a genuinely new social dynamic where intensity beats duplication and every move leaves a receipt.</p> <p>Richard Greaser of The Bitcoin Bugle joins to unpack how the tournament has evolved from a fun bracket into a live experiment in Bitcoin-native participation. He talks through why they kept the wide zap range, how unpredictability is part of the magic, and why Nostr’s version feels more wholesome and sportsmanlike than the more politically charged version on Twitter. The bigger theme is that having fun is not a distraction from the mission, it’s part of how movements stay alive.</p> <p>Mid-episode, the conversation shifts into music and culture-building. Richard explains how the new “Maxi Madness” song, written by him and performed by Noa Grumman, came together, and why collaborations like that matter as markers of a maturing Bitcoin-native creative scene. That opens into a passionate discussion of Revolution Rocks, the upcoming Belgrade festival, and the need to build music ecosystems where artists are actually paid, not merely offered “exposure.”</p> <p>The closing stretch zooms out again to the mood of the moment: podcast boosts are down, people feel psychologically squeezed, and the wider world is radiating bear-market fatigue. Richard’s answer is not pity but purpose. Hard times, he argues, are not proof that the signal failed. They are the proving ground that reveals whether people can turn struggle into meaning instead of despair.</p> <p><strong>Executive Producer:</strong> <a href="https://primal.net/p/nprofile1qqsgsrukw9z6ke448kwuy7w5f2tj9w58t53jculnmars0508n3pndnswl2gy7">Brandon Karpeles (plebiANON)</a></p> <p><strong>Links</strong></p> <ul> <li><a href="https://primal.net/e/nevent1qqstvjxmvfpllcnpstnk7cws7ehjvtdypmr073x5zp84dvz3yar66zstugmzn">Maxi Madness Video</a></li> <li><a href="https://primal.net/richardgreaser">Richard on Nostr</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/July-18-Avi-Burra/dp/B0G12PPTCM">Avi's New Book – July 18</a></li> <li><a href="https://indeehub.studio/film/finding-home/season/1/episode/3">Finding Home Episode 3 – Paraguay</a> [IndeeHub Code: <strong>PIONEER21</strong> ]</li> <li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/24-Avi-Burra/dp/B0CN9NRNNB/ref=sr*1*1?crid=27RW9P8JQ4YMV&keywords=avi+burra+24&qid=1700327391&sprefix=avi+burra+24%2Caps%2C122&sr=8-1%5D(https://www.amazon.com/24-Avi-Burra/dp/B0CN9NRNNB/ref=sr11?crid=27RW9P8JQ4YMV&keywords=avi+burra+24&qid=1700327391&sprefix=avi+burra+24%2Caps%2C122&sr=8-1">Avi's First Book – 24 (2nd Edition)</a></li> </ul>

<p>Sunday Brunch #10 is a classic “table, coffee, record player” decompression chamber with Aza (Şelale, “waterfall”) as guest-DJ, running on the Value-for-Value house rule: stream during songs and 90% goes straight to the artist; boost during conversation and you’re buying a round for the table.</p> <p>Aza shares updates on her newest culture node, Amplified Tunes: a European-leaning hub designed to connect independent musicians with fans through Nostr + Lightning, with a focus on making discovery and artist connection feel human (including only listing artists who have active Nostr accounts for direct audience connection). She also previews a physical magazine component (interviews, playlists, reviews, games) meant to be an extra “missing puzzle piece” for the ecosystem.</p> <p>The episode’s playlist swings across genres and scenes:</p> <ul> <li>“The Sky Is Falling” by Zēmar Red, a track Aza connects to real-world economic anxiety and hope (and notes the artist is active on Nostr).</li> <li>“Unify” by Halene, highlighting the band’s range and a detour into alternative tuning/frequency rabbit holes.</li> <li>“Telling Lies” by My Friend Jimmy, chosen for warm, introspective vibes.</li> <li>“Like A Ear Drum” by Silver Unit, a German discovery Aza hopes to “onboard” toward Nostr by giving them traction.</li> <li>“Nothing Left to Say” by Jaded Jester, a high-energy closer with that “teenage time machine” effect.</li> </ul> <p>Between tracks, Avi and Aza riff on the growing Europe/UK V4V scene (Essex, South by Worldwide) and Aza’s other long-running passion project: Bitcoin Junior Club / bitcoin4youth, focused on kid-friendly creativity, critical thinking, and family education without turning Bitcoin into a pushy sermon for children.</p> <p><strong>Executive Producer:</strong> <a href="https://primal.net/p/nprofile1qqs06thztlgw73p25xm5qj5n2jcju42wcr02mqdxez7m3ndzluynw0cd8uphl">Strange Love</a></p> <p><strong>Links</strong></p> <ul> <li><a href="https://amplifiedtunes.online/">Amplified Tunes Website</a></li> <li><a href="https://primal.net/p/nprofile1qqsg58ca6ven99nfcyxpjtz4s3ue4u8dd0g9qkwdwwyg70lphxqh0wsy756l3">Amplified Tunes on Nostr</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.bitcoin4youth.com/">Bitcoin Junior Club</a></li> <li><a href="https://bitcoinfilmfest.com/">Bitcoin Film Fest</a></li> <li><a href="https://primal.net/p/nprofile1qqsdlq8zmsyhy6dc53n036uljz94e6rl8ugv987w5kreq207vtzwtlq3r9u9e">Zēmar Red on Nostr</a></li> <li><a href="https://primal.net/p/nprofile1qqsfekza6enjanaun0g8p5uumr32yrnkpcly0rhfrxmk4tjkeslrnvclrx7ug">Haleen on Nostr</a></li> <li><a href="https://primal.net/p/nprofile1qqsdvz6u39xlq93unva3438gnly5h7md73eahnlccq6aww0na29ukkgttl28t">My Friend Jimi on Nostr</a></li> <li><a href="https://primal.net/p/nprofile1qqswr836xklpygv6cgucgjddz29n8syfgr98uhpn946ynh4wqwuvcjc4qkdag">Jaded Jester on Nostr</a></li> <li><a href="https://fountain.fm/playlist/Zx0C3BhIZQHguUSI8tjY">Today's Playlist</a></li> </ul>

<p>Episode 155 opens with Avi’s sermon “Ask Not for Whom the Bell Tolls”: permissionless networks don’t remove gravity. They remove gatekeepers and then demand competence: slow proof-of-work, deep roots, and the brutal honesty of output.</p> <p>UTXO the Webmaster returns and the convo starts in familiar territory: why the most recent “politician + Wall Street” Bitcoin cycle felt dirty, and why Bitcoin can’t survive as <em>only</em> a mainstream asset proxy. They both argue the cypherpunk ethos is fading and that the “Bitcoin as money” vision needs defending.</p> <p>From there, it’s full Nostr dev shop talk. UTXO explains why he built Wisp (Android): years of relay-side work (Haven) didn’t get client adoption, especially around inbox/outbox, and he got tired of waiting for basic UX improvements (including obvious stuff like GIF keyboards). AI-assisted front-end building helped him finally close the execution gap.</p> <p>A big chunk is the painful state of Nostr DMs: NIP-04 vs NIP-17 vs the newer “Marmot/White Noise” direction, and the interoperability mess that forces users to juggle clients just to coordinate shows. They agree the current situation is abject and that any migration will be chaotic, but necessary.</p> <p>Then the <a href="http://Nostr.band">Nostr.band</a> replacement: UTXO sketches why <a href="http://Nostr.band">Nostr.band</a> likely died (cost + maintenance + endless complaints) and why search/trending need to be treated like real ranking problems rather than “chronological results from a few relays.” His approach is to provide better search (authority + recency + credibility signals) and expose trending as relay feeds, so any client can consume it without proprietary lock-in.</p> <p>Wallet talk rounds it out: Wisp is NWC-first (no clunky “open external wallet” flow), with discussion of custodial vs non-custodial tradeoffs, Spark/Breez-style UX, and why Lightning’s single-node reliability model still fails the “pleb in a basement” test.</p> <p><strong>Links</strong></p> <ul> <li><a href="https://nostrarchives.com/">Nostr Archives</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/July-18-Avi-Burra/dp/B0G12PPTCM">Avi's New Book – July 18</a></li> <li><a href="https://indeehub.studio/film/finding-home/season/1/episode/3">Finding Home Episode 3 – Paraguay</a> [IndeeHub Code: <strong>PIONEER21</strong> ]</li> <li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/24-Avi-Burra/dp/B0CN9NRNNB/ref=sr*1*1?crid=27RW9P8JQ4YMV&keywords=avi+burra+24&qid=1700327391&sprefix=avi+burra+24%2Caps%2C122&sr=8-1%5D(https://www.amazon.com/24-Avi-Burra/dp/B0CN9NRNNB/ref=sr11?crid=27RW9P8JQ4YMV&keywords=avi+burra+24&qid=1700327391&sprefix=avi+burra+24%2Caps%2C122&sr=8-1">Avi's First Book – 24 (2nd Edition)</a></li> </ul>

<p>Sunday Brunch #9 is a classic “coffee + record player” decompression session with Budtender (Hash Power Music) as guest-DJ, running on the house rule: 90% of sats streamed during songs goes straight to the artist, and boosts during conversation keep the table stocked.</p> <p>Budtender shares how a chain of Nostr serendipities pulled him from a “silent Bitcoiner” life into hands-on music onboarding. He revisits Nostrville 2023 as a hinge moment, including the funny full-circle detail that a Plebchain Radio shirt photo ended up embedded in an album context, tying his early V4V journey to the first song Avi ever played on the show (“Closer to Somewhere” by The Retrograde).</p> <p>The conversation then zooms out into Budtender’s broader mission: Hash Power Music as an “end game” vision for the music world, built to merge what worked in legacy labels with artist sovereignty and V4V rails, avoiding the predatory incentive drift that corrodes centralized platforms.</p> <p>Playlist-wise, they spin and react to a set of tracks chosen to match the Brunch arc, including The Velvics’ “Favorite Child” (a stadium-sized, Pink Floyd-adjacent slow burn), Abel James’ “Live While I’m Alive” (a buoyant “do the thing anyway” anthem), The Trusted’s “Spin” (acoustic live version), Mooky’s “Shotgun” (a quirky new-to-V4V drop), and Survival Guide’s “Blood Perfume” (dark, cinematic mood, paired with a clever “Death Drinks” cocktail-book concept).</p> <p>A major mid-episode highlight is Budtender’s plug for South by Worldwide: a Bitcoin/Nostr community-built, Lightning-enabled variety-show-style music festival running alongside SXSW, with zaps/boosts dynamically routed as acts change, plus shoutouts to the crew making it happen and an open invite for artists to submit sets.</p>

<p>Episode 154 opens with Avi’s sermon “Weaponized Escapism”: in an attention-extraction world, the urge to flee is rational, but the <em>kind</em> of escape matters. Numbing out through feeds, outrage, and dopamine loops keeps you tethered to the machine. The real exit is constructive escapism: retreat into craft, build tools, make art, write code, and turn flight into creation.</p> <p>Sourcenode returns and immediately pushes the theme deeper: escaping “fiat” isn’t just dropping a currency, it’s unwinding layers in the psyche and social fabric. That leads into why he’s stayed on Nostr and off X: the nervous-system difference is real, and a lot of resistance to Nostr is less technical than it is about giving up accumulated influence (golden handcuffs, but for clout).</p> <p>From there: a detour into back pain as stress/anger, mattresses, and the body keeping receipts. Then the personal update: Sourcenode’s Austin chapter, where he helped build a podcast studio but walked away after realizing “podcasting is show business,” and monetizing it often means bending the knee to algorithmic clickbait.</p> <p>The heart of the episode is a high-level “node debate” reflection without getting dragged into tribal mud: Bitcoin is “trust-minimized,” not magically trustless, because humans still run the software, fund development, and choose what to ossify. The immutability lives partly in the social layer.</p> <p><strong>Executive Producer:</strong> <a href="https://primal.net/p/nprofile1qqsy6q3ua80awknlxp6m368qssqghct6ra6scca4meepumhcswkuwegutksft">Rev Hodl</a></p> <p><strong>Links</strong></p> <ul> <li><a href="https://primal.net/p/nprofile1qqsfye65t5530wq0wpllmdz23luhjxp9drhhh2syae6kk8cp6n3k3zs437rhc">Sourcenode on nostr</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/July-18-Avi-Burra/dp/B0G12PPTCM">Avi's New Book – July 18</a></li> <li><a href="https://indeehub.studio/film/finding-home/season/1/episode/3">Finding Home Episode 3 – Paraguay</a> [IndeeHub Code: <strong>PIONEER21</strong> ]</li> <li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/24-Avi-Burra/dp/B0CN9NRNNB/ref=sr*1*1?crid=27RW9P8JQ4YMV&keywords=avi+burra+24&qid=1700327391&sprefix=avi+burra+24%2Caps%2C122&sr=8-1%5D(https://www.amazon.com/24-Avi-Burra/dp/B0CN9NRNNB/ref=sr11?crid=27RW9P8JQ4YMV&keywords=avi+burra+24&qid=1700327391&sprefix=avi+burra+24%2Caps%2C122&sr=8-1">Avi's First Book – 24 (2nd Edition)</a></li> </ul>

<p>Avi is joined by Mark Suman (CEO of Maple AI, former Apple engineer) for a technical dive into the intersection of AI privacy, confidential computing, and Web-of-Trust as the internet shifts toward an agentic future.</p> <p>Mark explains Maple’s core design: privacy-first by default, where each user starts with a private encryption key, data is encrypted locally, and then processed in the cloud using secure enclaves/confidential computing so the company only ever sees encrypted blobs.</p> <p>The conversation contrasts this with “AI proxy” services (VPN-like shared accounts) that may reduce identity linkage but still send sensitive prompt content to big-tech model providers.</p> <p>From there, they widen out into the economics and trajectory of models: open-source catch-up (benchmarks like Humanity’s Last Exam), the limits of benchmark-chasing, and why Mark expects the “model obsession” to fade as apps and user experience become the real battleground.</p> <p>They also debate the sustainability of today’s venture-subsidized inference, the likelihood of price “switch flips,” and how platforms monetize users indirectly.</p> <p>The back half turns to agents: Mark outlines Maple’s roadmap toward a privacy-preserving personal agent with durable memory and carefully staged permissions (read-only integrations first, sandboxed work later), plus the hard problem of letting agents act in the world without becoming a giant attack surface.</p> <p>The episode closes by tying agents to identity and trust: Nostr’s signed events as an authenticity primitive, and the need for richer reputation signals as bots and humans transact side-by-side.</p> <p><strong>Links</strong></p> <ul> <li><a href="https://primal.net/marks">Mark Suman on Nostr</a></li> <li><a href="https://trymaple.ai/">Maple AI</a></li> </ul>

<p>Avi’s guest in this serving of Sunday Brunch is Ivy Lumi, a singer-songwriter and Bitcoin-industry native who began writing songs in late 2023 and spent about a year and a half getting her first five tracks produced, eventually releasing under the Ivy Lumi name starting May 2025.</p> <p>Ivy shares her creative process: she “hears” melodies first and uses a mobile songwriting app (Demo) to quickly capture chord progressions, arrange instruments, and record vocal ideas before moving into fuller production workflows.</p> <p>The conversation weaves through love, presence, and emotional honesty as Ivy explains the thesis at the core of her work: “Love is the cure.” She unpacks how Bitcoiners often unshackle themselves from fiat thinking but still carry “fiat trauma,” and why inner work matters even (especially) when Bitcoin “moons.”</p> <p>Playlist highlights include Ivy’s own tracks “Wowowow,” “SideQuest,” and “The Cure” (her first song, and the title track of her EP), plus guest picks that widen the palette: Zazawowow's “It’s the Only Way Through” (Zaza also collaborated on Ivy’s “Wowowow” visuals, alongside F-Zero) and Halene’s “Greatness,” a Nostr discovery Ivy champions as the kind of music we might hear in a more abundant future.</p> <p>Ivy also shares her Geyser campaign “Love is the Cure”, offering supporter items like a Nostr badge, collectible pins, and signed CDs as a way to fund independent, Bitcoin-native art.</p> <p><strong>Executive Producer:</strong> <a href="https://primal.net/p/npub1k0q20cdcvc64h6pka8ddum6m6y2edm6mw6v73cfctjwvhq3rrejss2kmaj">Silvie</a></p> <p><strong>Links</strong></p> <ul> <li><a href="https://geyser.fund/project/loveisthecure">Ivy's Geyser Campaign</a></li> <li><a href="https://primal.net/ivylumi">Ivy on Nostr</a></li> <li><a href="https://fountain.fm/playlist/no72iwFjXzKCdeWVDCsl">Today's Playlist</a></li> </ul>

<p>Episode 153 opens with Avi’s sermon <strong>“Fix Yourself to Fix the World”</strong>: Bitcoin can be a flawless instrument, but it doesn’t magically heal the operator. The call is to audit the inner ledger with the same seriousness we bring to the timechain, because sovereign networks demand sovereign people.</p> <p>Red Tail Hawk then shares a raw origin story shaped by the <strong>2008 financial crisis</strong>. After graduating with an applied mathematics degree in 2007, he gets hit by the post-crash job-market catch-22, sliding into a stretch of extreme austerity and homelessness before eventually rebuilding stability. That experience becomes the gateway into monetary curiosity: Ron Paul, the Fed, precious metals, and finally a serious Bitcoin deep dive around 2017 after watching price (and conviction) accelerate.</p> <p>From there, the conversation takes a spiritual turn. Red explains how he received the name <strong>“Red Tail Hawk”</strong> through a remote encounter with an elderly medicine man, and how that catalyzed years of research into comparative religion and esoteric traditions. He recounts a pivotal 2018 experience during Hurricane Florence era stress, describing a body-wide “pins and needles” event and involuntary hand postures, which he later connected to <strong>kundalini</strong> frameworks and a broader “perennial philosophy” lens, looking for common ground across traditions.</p> <p>A practical centerpiece of the episode is Red’s approach to <strong>“golden rule orange-pilling”</strong>: qualify your lead, learn what makes them tick, and tailor the Bitcoin entry point to their worldview (security/military frames vs ecology/permaculture frames), rather than trying to brute-force a one-size pitch.</p> <p>They also explore “missing years” Jesus travel theories (India/Tibet threads), skepticism toward religious <strong>canon</strong> as a kind of “fiat authority,” and Red’s current writing project around symbolism, etymology, and what he calls <strong>“Language of the Birds.”</strong></p> <p>Later, they touch the “Bitcoin metanoia” phenomenon (Bitcoin as a mind-and-heart pivot), praxeology as a bridge toward empathy, and a deep nerdy detour into <strong>theta states, grounding, Schumann resonance, and Itzhak Bentov</strong> as a missing-link figure in consciousness research.</p> <p><strong>Links</strong></p> <ul> <li><a href="https://primal.net/p/nprofile1qqsp2j0df0n36xnsagku53vke5x9f3s6afy9cmjwt2x2gcm43jvd6jsr5xl56">Red Tail Hawk on Nostr</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.clubhouse.com/house/flight-club-aeg58h1l7sb6?chs=QKlU4Z4pWa%3A162m6aw2UBc-Y_38pxL36vmjIQ78UBQVqgi1qMuq7KQ">Flight Club</a></li> <li><a href="https://fountain.fm/episode/xJhmGJwLayW0ADEwmU2L">Red's Latest Appearance on the Once Bitten Podcast</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/July-18-Avi-Burra/dp/B0G12PPTCM">Avi's New Book – July 18</a></li> <li><a href="https://indeehub.studio/film/finding-home/season/1/episode/3">Finding Home Episode 3 – Paraguay</a> [IndeeHub Code: <strong>PIONEER21</strong> ]</li> <li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/24-Avi-Burra/dp/B0CN9NRNNB/ref=sr*1*1?crid=27RW9P8JQ4YMV&keywords=avi+burra+24&qid=1700327391&sprefix=avi+burra+24%2Caps%2C122&sr=8-1%5D(https://www.amazon.com/24-Avi-Burra/dp/B0CN9NRNNB/ref=sr11?crid=27RW9P8JQ4YMV&keywords=avi+burra+24&qid=1700327391&sprefix=avi+burra+24%2Caps%2C122&sr=8-1">Avi's First Book – 24 (2nd Edition)</a></li> </ul>

<p>Avi opens the episode with a sermon on <strong>“the compromised substrate”</strong>: when public idols crack, the scavengers try to smear the entire network with the sins of a few. <strong>Bitcoin is not its loudest humans</strong>, and the protocol shouldn’t inherit anyone’s moral debt by association.</p> <p>Then Ben Justman returns, bringing it back to earth with the reality of shipping bottles, licensing, and the awkward border where Bitcoin-native trade meets heavily regulated goods such as wine. They riff on the dream of resilient “Denim Road” style trade routes and courier networks, but Ben explains why alcohol law keeps him partially pinned to the fiat rails, even if his customers and values are fully Bitcoin.</p> <p>From there, they dig into the state of Nostr commerce: marketplaces like Plebeian Market/Shopstr and the practical frictions of e-cash, discovery, and demand. Ben shares a very relatable “I’m early and I paid tuition” moment: he sold wine once, fumbled an e-cash withdrawal, balked at fees, and later realized the funds were gone.</p> <p>The conversation closes around an artisan’s paradox in a bear market: quality requires pricing with integrity, but buyers feel poorer, even as they might “need the wine the most.” Then the deeper pricing insight: sometimes raising prices and removing shipping friction signals quality more honestly than trying to compete with supermarket expectations.</p> <p><strong>Links</strong></p> <ul> <li><a href="https://www.peonylanewine.com/">Peony Lane</a></li> <li><a href="https://primal.net/soakquest">Soak Quest</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/July-18-Avi-Burra/dp/B0G12PPTCM">Avi's New Book – July 18</a></li> <li><a href="https://indeehub.studio/film/finding-home/season/1/episode/3">Finding Home Episode 3 – Paraguay</a> [IndeeHub Code: <strong>PIONEER21</strong> ]</li> <li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/24-Avi-Burra/dp/B0CN9NRNNB/ref=sr*1*1?crid=27RW9P8JQ4YMV&keywords=avi+burra+24&qid=1700327391&sprefix=avi+burra+24%2Caps%2C122&sr=8-1%5D(https://www.amazon.com/24-Avi-Burra/dp/B0CN9NRNNB/ref=sr11?crid=27RW9P8JQ4YMV&keywords=avi+burra+24&qid=1700327391&sprefix=avi+burra+24%2Caps%2C122&sr=8-1">Avi's First Book – 24 (2nd Edition)</a></li> </ul>

<p>Guest host <strong>Aaron of Essex</strong> takes the Sunday Brunch wheel and welcomes <strong>Longy</strong> for a laid-back, music-first hang: five Longy tracks get spun, boosted, and dissected in real time, with the chat and sats flowing as part of the show’s “participation layer.”</p> <p>Between songs, Longy rewinds the tape to his early influences (from childhood sparks to teenage band chaos) and makes the case for <strong>live performance</strong> as the ultimate truth serum: the stage doesn’t care about hype, it only cares what you can actually do when the lights hit.</p> <p>The conversation keeps one foot in <strong>Essex lore</strong> and one foot in <strong>the Valueverse</strong>. “Hamlet Court Blues” becomes a love-letter-to-a-place (with a cheeky Margot Robbie thread), and the guys talk about why gritty, story-rich local scenes still matter.</p> <p>On the industry side, Aaron and Longy contrast the legacy music pipeline (distributors, slow publishing, tiny payouts) with the immediacy of value-for-value, where artists can get paid directly and fast.</p> <p>They dig into Spotify-as-gatekeeper dynamics and the uglier incentives around streaming, including allegations of inflated numbers and the way “top-heavy” manipulation starves everyone downstream.</p> <p>They also unpack a practical, boots-on-the-ground example: a UK gig at <strong>The Fickle Pickle</strong> that turned into a mini proof-of-concept for the new model, combining an in-room show, livestream participation, and even a recorded release as additional revenue, with Bitcoin onboarding help for attendees.</p> <p><strong>Links</strong></p> <ul> <li><a href="https://bitcoinessex.co.uk/new-music-nudge-unit/">New Music Nudge Unit</a></li> <li><a href="https://primal.net/p/nprofile1qqsvgj4kam4n5rjatjxc46p2ltgw89aal0yjqrta3lp7u99xn60hgrq5w3sr2">Aaron on Nostr</a></li> <li><a href="https://fountain.fm/artist/8WjaMQiEL72yy16HsBpe">Longy on Fountain</a></li> <li><a href="https://primal.net/p/nprofile1qqszsshrfpsvt806e4wlfza85egxtenkp5yvxhmhj4fas0pvyvgtfyc487uxm">Longy on Nostr</a></li> </ul>

<p>In episode 3 of Say Wot?, guest host David Strayhorn sits down with Matthias DeBernardini, a software developer and “agentic engineering” tinkerer who’s just joined NosFabrica to help build open-source Web of Trust tooling on Nostr. </p> <p>They trace Matthias’ path from materials engineering into Bitcoin (including an early “$90 BTC is too expensive” family moment), then into graph theory, Lightning experiments, and Rust-heavy open-source work (Fedimint, AnchorWatch). From there, the convo zooms into the core question: can we build <em>decentralized</em> recommendation systems without recreating the extractive, centralized incentives of Big Tech? </p> <p>They unpack why today’s large-scale AI training tends to favor hyperscalers (hardware, bandwidth, overhead), why “decentralized labeling” often still collapses into centralized control, and where a better hybrid might live: community-curated, topic-structured data (a “grapevine” Web of Trust) paired with local models for narrow tasks, fine-tuning, and personal assistants. </p> <p>The episode ends with a clear thesis: the internet’s signal-to-noise problem is incentive-driven, and the way out is opt-out plus better tools, built around user control and delegated trust.</p> <p><strong>Links</strong></p> <ul> <li><a href="https://nosfabrica.com/">NosFabrica</a></li> <li><a href="https://primal.net/straycat">David on Nostr</a></li> <li><a href="https://primal.net/p/nprofile1qqsgl8z90pl30xeff9sgll92u7nnkknaz2j26vy4jnp2yqnnvqdwwrc0ac38m">Matias on Nostr</a></li> </ul>

<p>Ryan Cooper from Bitcoin Ranch joins Avi for a boots-on-the-ground conversation about rebuilding real-world resilience: food, trade, and community. Ryan shares his path from Detroit childhood roots and a fiercely independent, homeschool-led upbringing to managing a Chevy dealership, then getting “pandemic orange-pilled” into realizing how fragile modern supply chains really are.</p> <p>That wake-up call turns into a local “milk route,” hands-on support for nearby farmers, and the broader Bitcoin Ranch vision: a decentralized farm incubator built around relationships, volunteer labor, and a growing network of producers and consumers who want clean food and direct-to-consumer markets.</p> <p>They dig into the “Denim Road” idea (a regional trade corridor), the practical realities of distribution, and Ryan’s near-term solution: member-only microstores. Think climate-controlled sheds with shelf rentals for producers, RFID (or future Nostr-based) access for members, and minimal middlemen, inspired by honor-system farm stands and a self-serve community shop model Ryan saw in Finland.</p> <p>The throughline is proof-of-work living: if you want real food, real money, and real comms, you build it, locally, with people you can shake hands with.</p> <p><strong>Links</strong></p> <ul> <li><a href="https://primal.net/p/nprofile1qqsf0yyw33vgdfwxpy76d00mdk4nqg35r25h8r7qqkdnhka04c36gqgjn8ls3">Ryan On Nostr</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/July-18-Avi-Burra/dp/B0G12PPTCM">Avi's New Book – July 18</a></li> <li><a href="https://indeehub.studio/film/finding-home/season/1/episode/3">Finding Home Episode 3 – Paraguay</a> [IndeeHub Code: <strong>PIONEER21</strong> ]</li> <li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/24-Avi-Burra/dp/B0CN9NRNNB/ref=sr*1*1?crid=27RW9P8JQ4YMV&keywords=avi+burra+24&qid=1700327391&sprefix=avi+burra+24%2Caps%2C122&sr=8-1%5D(https://www.amazon.com/24-Avi-Burra/dp/B0CN9NRNNB/ref=sr11?crid=27RW9P8JQ4YMV&keywords=avi+burra+24&qid=1700327391&sprefix=avi+burra+24%2Caps%2C122&sr=8-1">Avi's First Book – 24 (2nd Edition)</a></li> </ul>

<p>Guest host OpenMike takes the wheel for a laid-back, music-first Sunday Brunch with Tatum Turn Up, kicking off with some classic Nostr “we’re live … are we live?” chaos across Primal/Damus before settling into the vibe of Value for Value radio: sats flow to artists during tracks, and to the show during the chat.</p> <p>Tatum shares an origin story that feels like pure internet destiny: getting orange-pilled after time in Pomp’s “crypto academy,” then accidentally DM-ing his way into filming with Anthony Pompliano, which launched Between Two ASICs and a run of heavyweight guests.</p> <p>The conversation ranges from the creator reality of modern platforms to why community-driven funding models matter, including how V4V and live events can restore a more direct patron-to-artist relationship in a world drowning in content. </p> <p>They also nerd out on the future of streaming: Tatum dunks on Twitch’s walled-garden incentives and explains why <a href="http://zap.stream">zap.stream</a> is a better creator-native loop, then detours into gaming culture with Kaizo Super Mario World romhacks and the joy of high-skill, high-fail challenges.</p> <p>Closing stretch: festival energy and “micro-Nostrica” moments, including talk of WhatFest in Wyoming and the magic of running into Nostr people IRL, plus a shout to Ainsley Costello (“Cherry on Top”) as a V4V breakout and artist model.</p>

<p>In episode 150, Avi Burra welcomes <a href="https://primal.net/p/nprofile1qqsdwr2spy2sfwvj6xpcsg40y3w476e6z6uzmyt6edujfnhkrm22emsfe0ut5">Auggie</a> from the “Meshtadel” world to talk regenerative farming, circular Bitcoin economies, and what it looks like to build a parallel system from the dirt up. Avi opens with a “soil is the original protocol” sermon: real resilience comes from base layers (trust, attention, relationships, values), not glossy interfaces or top-of-stack hype.</p> <p>Auggie, a DevOps engineer turned farmer, shares how he’s regenerating 99 acres in Missouri with management-intensive rotational grazing, raising sheep, pigs, and a small but growing cattle herd. He frames “Meshtadel” as both literal mesh networking and a broader metaphor: local “citadels” that can meet essential needs on their own, then trade for luxuries and gaps across a wider network, like a resilient hologram.</p> <p>They dig into externalities: how modern living hides downstream consequences (waste, subsidies, monocrops), while regenerative practices close loops with manure, rotation, biodiversity, and low-input systems. Auggie gives vivid on-the-ground examples, from using pigs and sheep to suppress invasives (like Japanese honeysuckle) to celebrating dung beetles as a sign the soil biology is coming back online.</p> <p>They connect the farm to Bitcoin: Auggie sells farm goods for sats through local meetups, helps bootstrap a circular economy (raw milk, honey, soaps, salsa, 3D-printed goods), and dreams up “trade routes” between cities and meetups to move real-world necessities on a Bitcoin standard.</p> <p><strong>Links</strong></p> <ul> <li><a href="https://www.Inkblotfarm.com">Ink Blot Farm</a></li> <li><a href="https://kcbitcoiners.com">KC Bitcoiners</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/July-18-Avi-Burra/dp/B0G12PPTCM">Avi's New Book – July 18</a></li> <li><a href="https://indeehub.studio/film/finding-home/season/1/episode/3">Finding Home Episode 3 – Paraguay</a> [IndeeHub Code: <strong>PIONEER21</strong> ]</li> <li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/24-Avi-Burra/dp/B0CN9NRNNB/ref=sr*1*1?crid=27RW9P8JQ4YMV&keywords=avi+burra+24&qid=1700327391&sprefix=avi+burra+24%2Caps%2C122&sr=8-1%5D(https://www.amazon.com/24-Avi-Burra/dp/B0CN9NRNNB/ref=sr11?crid=27RW9P8JQ4YMV&keywords=avi+burra+24&qid=1700327391&sprefix=avi+burra+24%2Caps%2C122&sr=8-1">Avi's First Book – 24 (2nd Edition)</a></li> </ul>