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 We’re going to climb a ladder together today. It’s perhaps one of the more important ladders you will ever climb: the ladder of financial sovereignty. Until last year when I began to learn about Bitcoin, I didn’t know that such a ladder even existed and I’m guessing you didn’t either. What this ladder symbolizes is one of the more important human freedoms available to us in the 21st century. This ladder is needed most in war-torn regions of the world like Syria or Afghanistan. [Hat tip to Alex Gladstein for his amazing articles that highlight the financial repression found in some of these regions.] This ladder is needed in regions of the world where the nation’s currency is rapidly losing value and where financial repression is out of control. This ladder is needed by those who don’t trust their government to act in their best interest. This ladder is for people who don’t trust central bankers to act in their best interest. This ladder is for people willing to accept 100% respons...

  In this week’s “Bitcoin Bottom Line” episode, co-hosts Steven McClurg and C.J. Wilson are joined by guest Nick Hansen, CEO of Luxor, and Josh Olszewicz, Valkyrie’s head of research. Luxor is one of the top 10 bitcoin mining pools in the world. They have a Hash Rate Index, and through that they are aiming to provide great data about the mining ecosystem. In addition, they have an ASIC Index. In addition to a suite of other products, they are just about to launch Energy Markets to track the value of energy over time, which they view as very integral to bitcoin mining. Wilson says, “Hash rate is worldwide, machines are getting better every couple of years, and now there are new innovations because companies like Luxor are getting involved with the firmware side.” He goes on to ask, “How do you see growth in bitcoin mining in the next couple of years?” Hansen explains that he doesn’t see the consistent hash rate all-time highs stopping, but the only thing that could reverse that tren...

  Seed phrases, a random combination of words from the Bitcoin Improvement Protocol (BIP) 39 list of 2048 words, act as one of the primary layers of security against unauthorized access to a user’s crypto holdings. But, what happens when your “smart” phone’s predictive typing remembers and suggests the words next time you try to access your digital wallet? Andre, a 33-year-old IT professional from Germany, recently posted on the r/CryptoCurrency subreddit after discovering his mobile phone’s ability to predict the entire recovery seed phrase as soon as he typed down the first word. As a fair warning to fellow Redditors and crypto enthusiasts, Andre’s post highlighted the ease with which hackers can use the feature to drain a user’s funds just by being able to type the first word out of the BIP 39 list: “This makes it easy to attack, get your hands on a phone, start any chat app, and start typing any words off the BIP39 list, and see what the phone suggests.” Speaking to Cointelegra...

  Puerto Maldonado in Peru's Madre de Dios province feels like a frontier town. Dusty streets, ramshackle buildings, new construction and the hustle and bustle of people who want to make it. Tourists are bussed through the town to the many ecotourism companies that bring people from all over the world to experience the Amazon. Puerto Maldonado is perched on the bank of the Tambopata River, a tributary to the Amazon. The Tambopata River received some fame in ecotourism circles when the clay-licking macaws were featured on the cover of the January 1994 National Geographic issue. The industry has boomed ever since. Typically, tourists are quickly moved to boats on the Tambopata and make their way to private lodges for the ecotourism operations. Some of these are partnerships with local indigenous groups, while others are outright owners of private land on the banks of the river. Walking through the streets of Puerto Maldonado, you'll see streets with that frontier feel … and you...

  Bitcoin key management is probably one of the scariest aspects of interacting with your money for a new user with any sizable amount of value. It’s also one of the most important aspects. One of the core aspects of bitcoin that truly differentiates it from the forms of digital value that preceded it historically is the ability to control and custody your own funds, to not have to depend on some central authority or record keeper to maintain possession of and retain the ability to transfer or spend it. Without the ability to hold your own private keys, it would not be possible to truly use bitcoin in a self-sovereign way without third parties. This opens up a door of massive potential and possibilities, but also a door to massive responsibility and risk. As has commonly been reiterated many times over the years, there is no Bitcoin customer support. There is no help desk to call, no one to hold your hand and undo mistakes you might make, there’s just you. This is the most difficul...

  Fort Worth will vote on a bill intended to strengthen the bitcoin mining industry of Texas tomorrow. The Texas Blockchain Council is set to donate three bitcoin miners to the City Council. The donation will signal the start of a 6-month trial period in which the City Council of Fort Worth will begin mining bitcoin. Fort Worth, Texas is set to vote on a bill that encourages bitcoin mining technology and sees the City Council receive three bitcoin miners donated from the Texas Blockchain Council, per a report from MSN. The bill seeks to position Fort Worth as “crypto-friendly" and "welcoming to the industry." The city also aims to lure in "businesses contributing to the development of this evolving technology,” according to the report. The three bitcoin miners being donated are valued at $2,100 each and will be given to the City Council completely free for a six-month pilot period. The machines being donated were not specified in the report, but should the pilot pro...

  Russia’s invasion of Ukraine took most of the world by surprise; it should not have. It is the logical and material result of a war of ideas that has been waged by a small group of Russian intellectuals and political leaders over the past several decades — a war which the West has ignored at its own peril. Fortunately, Europe and America already have a response to this attack doing its work in the world: Bitcoin. It is in our best interests to embrace the Bitcoin monetary network as a new social institution that instantiates liberal values in open-source software. For too long, the West has ignored the political theory — indeed, the political theology — behind Vladimir Putin’s particular brand of Russian nationalism. Putin subscribes to an ideology elaborated over the past several decades by Aleksandr Dugin, a philosopher who argues that Russian collective identity needs to assert its supremacy on the world stage in the form of a Greater Russia, which must in turn become the poli...