Bitcoin Rails | Isabel Foxen Duke

As language models evolve into extensions of memory, judgment, and decision-making—questions of ownership, privacy, and autonomy become increasingly difficult to ignore. In this interview, Vora founders Erik Cason and Jesse Posner share why the future of AI will look very different depending on our ability to do one thing: maintain self-custody of our personal data—with private keys, just like Bitcoin. A conversation about who controls the systems shaping human cognition, and how we can protect ourselves with the same ethos we protect our Bitcoin—this interview covers: Why AI is the most intimate technology ever created + the specific risks of centralized AI systems controlling sensitive personal information How Bitcoin's self-custody model provides a framework for thinking about data ownership in the AI age (Not Your Keys, Not Your Mind) Why data sovereignty may become one of the defining technological and political questions of the coming decades How you can protect yourself and your personal information from centralized AI risks—including data leaks, political manipulation and more. This episode of Bitcoin Rails is brought to you by my sponsors: LayerTwo Labs — developing research, software, and technologies for scaling Bitcoin via the integration of Drivechains (BIP 300/301) Hashi on Sui Network — a primitive for executing Bitcoin DeFi transactions, without having to trust a federated bridge or other centralized entity BitBox — an open-source Bitcoin-only hardware wallet, with smooth UX and no compromises on security. Check out Bitbox [dot] swiss and use code BITCOINRAILS to get a discount

“The current mining landscape is dominated by proprietary, closed-source players who aren’t really serving the needs of the market. That creates an opportunity for open source mining to matter again.” Bitaxe creator Skot dives into the state of modern Bitcoin mining, where a small handful of industry players control nearly every facet of mining hardware and ASIC production—in a tightly sealed, closed-source environment. While Bitcoin software developers often champion a rigorously open-source ethos in building, Skot shares why the mining industry “isn’t like that” and how closed-source mining production creates unique centralization vectors—from limiting participation by “pleb” solo miners to exacerbating geopolitical risks on an industrial scale. Thankfully, we’re starting to see a shift in demand and supply of open-source mining tools—including the recent development of “Bitaxes,” which have notably revived the solo miner community over the last year. In this episode, Skot shares the full history of the open-source mining movement, including: - How ASIC manufacturers like Bitmain and foundries like TSMC came to dominate the industry, and why competition at the silicon layer is so challenging - The geopolitics of chip manufacturing and the near-monopoly of China & Taiwan in developing ASIC technology - Why mining systems producers keep their technology so close to the vest, and who these closed-source systems most hurt in the process - How advocates at the independent and corporate levels (think: Skot and Jack Dorsey) are challenging the status quo and leading the open-source mining revolution Shout-outs in this episode to the Texas Energy and Mining Summit Bitcoin Park, and early Bitaxe supporters ZK shark and Ordinal Maxi Biz. This episode of Bitcoin Rails is powered by: - Best In Slot — the leading API for Ordinals and BRC-20 data aggregation and indexing. - Spark — a statechains implementation advancing Bitcoin-powered payments. - Citrea — a leading Bitcoin rollup technology and BitVM alliance contributor. TIMESTAMPS 📌 00:00 Intro 01:27 Diving Into Bitaxe and Ordinals 04:02 The Open Source Nature of Bitaxe 05:43 Challenges in Chip Manufacturing 07:27 The Role of TSMC and Bitmain in Mining 15:26 The Evolution and Impact of Bitaxe 22:31 The First Bitaxe Manufacturer 31:28 Why Are People Buying Bitaxes? 35:47 A Different Way of Thinking About Bitcoin Mining 37:54 Decentralization and Home Mining 41:12 Ongoing Challenges in Chip Manufacturing 44:07 How Did Jack Dorsey Get Chips From TSMC? 49:03 How Bitcoin Mining Chips Interact With Software 01:04:51 The Role of Open Source in Bitcoin’s Future

If you’ve been following the “Bitcoin Season II” meta for some time, you’re likely already following Bitcoin tech critic Alex Bergeron—formerly comms at Blockstream and Layer-2 reporter for Bitcoin Magazine. A notorious contrarian, he’s known for being difficult to impress—and for having a soft spot for the Ark Protocol, which he sees as uniquely suited for trustless Bitcoin scaling and DeFi usecases (e.g. lending) more broadly. Alex made his relationship with the Ark protocol official earlier this year, joining the Arkade implementation team led by Ark Labs and Tiero. Taking a notably different approach to both engineering and product design than competitor Second (see last week’s episode with Steven Roose for comparison), Alex shares why the payments use case is “only the beginning” for the Ark protocol, and why Ark Labs intends to lead the charge on the protocol’s potential for Bitcoin-native DeFi. In this episode, Alex and I unpack: - How Alex’s experiences at Blockstream and Bitcoin Magazine shaped his views on governance, communication, and prepared him for the new wave of political disruption we're seeing in Bitcoin today. - Why the Payments use-case is only ONE application Ark Lab's Arkade implementation intends to support. - The trade-offs of introducing programmability into Ark: why expressiveness introduces operator dependencies, and how Arkade approaches minimizing (but not eliminating) those trust assumptions. - What Bitcoin-native capital markets could look like: synthetic exposure, structured products, and treasury-style use cases, designed to remain self-custodial once the technology matures. For anyone trying to understand the differences between competing Ark protocol implementations—this episode is a must-watch. Highly recommend a side-by-side comparison with last week's episode with Steven Roose as well. This episode of Bitcoin Rails is powered by: - Best In Slot — the leading API for Ordinals and BRC-20 data aggregation and indexing. - Spark — a statechains implementation advancing Bitcoin-powered payments. - Citrea — a leading Bitcoin rollup technology and BitVM alliance contributor. 📌 Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 01:45 Alex’s Early Bitcoin Journey 02:59 Scaling Bitcoin and Community Involvement 08:11 Blockstream and the Block Size Wars 14:25 Transition to Bitcoin Magazine 21:10 Joining Arkade and Future Prospects 41:09 Key Difference Between Arkade and Second 43:59 Off-Chain Transactions and Operator Risks 46:11 Bitcoin Native Assets and Programmability 51:29 Synthetic Assets and Financial Products 56:01 Challenges and Opportunities in Bitcoin Programmability 01:04:38 Past and Future of Bitcoin Programmability

"You cannot prevent arbitrary data from being published in Bitcoin transactions. Even at the consensus level… It’s mathematically impossible.” Legendary Bitcoin contributor since 2009 and self-described "weirdo with a fine arts degree," Peter Todd joins me to unpack the endless wars over Bitcoin's "true purpose," his pioneering work putting "spam" on the blockchain, and why he believes attempts to filter transactions are just “silly.” In this episode, we get deep into the history of using Bitcoin for data storage - which goes back, at least, to the development of Namecoin in 2011. Relatedly, we cover the history and long-fought governance battles around OP_RETURN, relay policy and our community's evolving definitions of "arbitrary data." Suffice it to say, the Filter Wars of 2024/25 are not new… they are simply one battle in a decade+ war we unpack in detail in this context-rich episode of Bitcoin Rails. In more detail, this episode covers: - The development of Open Time Stamps + Bitcoin's use in validating election data and beyond. - OPRETURN battles of the early days… and how its use has evolved over the past decade. - Why Bitcoin Core "should not try to censor transactions" and the "performance art project" (Libre Relay) that shows why. - Bitcoin as a "replicated database" and why blockchains may legitimately be useful outside of sound money. - Why preventing arbitrary data on Bitcoin is "mathematically impossible" …and trying to stop it is only distracting us from "more important" efforts, like the Great Consensus Cleanup @darosior. This episode of Bitcoin Rails is powered by: - Best In Slot — the leading API for Ordinals and BRC-20 data aggregation and indexing. - Spark — a statechains implementation advancing Bitcoin-powered payments. - Citrea — the leading Bitcoin rollup technology and BitVM alliance contributor. Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 01:19 Bitcoin Early Days 03:44 OpenTimestamps Project 12:22 Governance and Bitcoin Protocol Debates 26:36 The Blockchain Use Case Argument 35:46 Transaction Version Numbers and Standardization 38:30 Preventing Exploits and DDoS Attacks 40:10 Relay Policies and Economic Decisions 42:00 The Taproot Annex and OP_RETURN 45:07 Libre Relay 01:01:18 Future of Bitcoin and Soft Fork Proposals

“99% of Bitcoin is held idle, not because of lack of interest, but because of lack of trust.” Not long after Ordinals (and BRC20) revitalized the “Bitcoin DeFi” narrative, Babylon Labs seemingly leapt onto the scene with what felt like overnight success – locking several billion dollars of TVL in its “trustless Bitcoin staking” protocol. With some of the most interesting advisors and contributors in the space (…seriously, what other projects can claim both Domo and Robin Linus as collaborators?), Babylon quickly became a “BTC-Fi” Goliath – converting both Bitcoin Season 2 types and formerly staunch ETH maxis alike. In this episode, I sit down with creator David Tse to get the protocol's birth story - and learn how POS staking became the first truly trustless Bitcoin DeFi application in the world. In this episode, we cover: - Why smaller POS chains need better security… and how Bitcoin liquidity may be the answer to securing experimental chains in smaller ecosystems - How David’s former experiences in the Cosmos ecosystem informed the core thesis of using Bitcoin to secure smaller chains - A quick breakdown of Babylon’s staking architecture - and what exactly makes it “trustless” - Babylon’s relationship with BitVM, and the team’s lesser known contributions to both BitVM2 and BitVM3 (Fun Fact: David Tse is Robin Linus's PhD advisor at Stanford 🧑‍🎓) - Why Bitcoiners didn’t want to stake their Bitcoin for yield until now… and how the "trustlessness" thesis is already panning out (with 1 whale dropping a whopping 10K Bitcoin in the protocol just a few months back!) Bitcoin Rails is powered by: - Best In Slot — the leading API for Ordinals and BRC-20 data aggregation and indexing. - Spark — a Statechains implementation advancing Bitcoin-powered payments. - Citrea — the leading Bitcoin rollup technology and BitVM alliance contributor. Timestamps 00:00 Intro 00:38 Bitcoin++ Insights 01:52 David’s Background and Information Theory 05:34 Journey into Bitcoin and Blockchain 07:34 Scaling Bitcoin with Prism Protocol 10:38 Babylon and Cosmos Ecosystem 13:51 Bitcoin Staking and Security Mechanisms 24:49 The Importance of Reputation in Crypto 25:51 Partners and Announcements Break 27:25 Profile of Babylon Stakers 29:17 The Grand Vision for Babylon 32:40 Garbled Circuits and Secret Revelation 44:05 Trustless Bitcoin Vaults and Future Prospects