The Conor Chepenik Podcast

Hosted by Conor Chepenik

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May 2026

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Bitcoiner doing his part to get the world on a global reserve currency backed by open source software and math instead of violence.

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May 12, 20261 hr 16 min

GMONEY: Bitcoin, Soft War, Nostr, AI, and Digital 1776

GMONEY joins The Conor Chepenik Podcast for a wide-ranging conversation on Bitcoin, soft war, self-custody, Nostr, AI, memes, tokenization, and why he believes humanity is living through a global Digital 1776.We discuss GMONEY’s path from Ron Paul, gold, and questioning the Federal Reserve into Bitcoin, his experience at the Las Vegas shooting, why he views Bitcoin as a peaceful power projection technology, and how self-custody gives individuals a new kind of authority in cyberspace. From there, we get into fiat incentives, the spiritual and moral dimensions of money, the role of memes in information warfare, Nostr and zaps as proof-of-real social media, AI as a deflationary force, stablecoins, Counterparty, tokenization, capital markets, Satoshi, and the peaceful opt-out path Bitcoin opens for the world.The episode ends with Digital 1776, a song inspired by the conversation.Follow GMONEY:X: https://x.com/GMONEYPEPETelegram: https://t.me/bullionbitcoinbsNostr: https://primal.net/p/nprofile1qqsqh73r2f3q9x7axf0my6pkv7v9ph3fgetm33dtxtlaccxlw862g2cjllrg6Rugpull Radio on Rumble: https://rumble.com/playlists/N6IFHf2pPm81776.love: https://oplanbtc.com/1776Follow Conor:X: https://x.com/ConorChepenikWebsite: https://www.binmucker.com/Time Codes:00:00:00 Intro00:00:12 Who is GMONEY? Ron Paul, gold, Bitcoin, and Rugpull Radio00:04:19 The Las Vegas shooting and GMONEY’s search for truth00:06:39 Bitcoin as a global Digital 177600:09:51 Why peaceful opt-out beats kinetic revolution00:13:44 Bitcoin, zero-sum fiat games, and win-win incentives00:23:47 Memes, media, and Bitcoin as the truth machine00:30:34 Nostr, zaps, proof-of-work social media, and the dead internet00:37:17 AI, open source, Bitcoin, and the coming deflationary bomb00:50:41 Trump, numerology, 1111, and Bitcoin’s strange coincidences01:00:33 Stablecoins, tokenization, Counterparty, and capital markets01:08:01 What would GMONEY ask Satoshi?01:10:43 Where to find GMONEY01:12:29 Digital 1776 song outro

April 20, 20261 hr 17 min

Putting a Paywall on Your Inbox with Rythm.xyz

Sean is my boy from Boston and a great fellow Bitcoiner. He's building Rythm.xyz, a last line of defense for Gmail and Outlook that whitelists known senders and lets strangers pay a Lightning micro-payment to land in your inbox marked as paid. No custody, no money transmitter risk, just LNURL and Cashu tokens doing God's work to bring sound money to the masses.We spend real time on the two filters missing from the internet: identity and cost. Without them, you get an infinite cat-and-mouse game with spammers, AI slop, and eventually a government ID attached to every click. With them, you get something closer to how physical mail works. Intent and honesty, because sending something costs something.From there we go into open-source AI versus proprietary frontier labs, why metered intelligence is the real dystopia, and Sean's ecosystem analogy for what fiat did to civilization. We close on agency. Jeff Booth, Ayn Rand, Satoshi, and why nobody is coming to save you.I hope you enjoy listening to this rip, as much as I enjoyed engaging in it. Timecodes: 00:00:00 Intro and Sean's Bitcoin origin story 00:03:01 Unlearning broken money 00:05:56 Trojan horse for freedom 00:09:00 Rhythm.xyz and the last line of defense for email 00:17:28 Identity and cost, the two missing filters 00:22:25 Panopticon, deepfakes, and paywalling attention 00:35:54 Open source versus proprietary AI 00:47:04 Metered intelligence and the Tesla JP Morgan parallel 00:53:13 Diluting the calorie, the ecosystem analogy 01:00:09 Agency, Ayn Rand, and the question for SatoshiCheck out Rhythm: https://rythm.xyz

April 11, 20261 hr 8 min

Alex B on Ark, Arkade, Bitcoin Credit Markets, and Layer 2s

Conor sits down with Alex B, Head of Ecosystem at Ark Labs, to talk about how Ark and Arkade are rethinking Bitcoin's off-chain architecture, why the term "layer two" is going to fade from the conversation, and where Bitcoin credit markets are headed.They get into the technical weeds on how Arkade uses a client-server model with co-signed spending conditions to move Bitcoin off chain without the liquidity and routing headaches that Lightning deals with. Alex explains how Arkade's scripting environment goes beyond simple payment channels, opening up more complex contracts, lending products, and multi-asset swaps, all while keeping unilateral exit to the base chain as a guarantee.The conversation shifts to stablecoins on Bitcoin, specifically why having USD liquidity native to Bitcoin infrastructure is the missing piece for a real credit market. Alex breaks down the difference between how USDC has found traction in international business settlements versus the organic ground-floor adoption Tether has seen in developing economies, and why Ark Labs is talking to smaller stablecoin issuers in different countries to plug into Arkade's platform.They also cover AI and developer tooling: how Alex's team is using agents internally for massive productivity gains, how their CEO vibe-coded an agent-to-agent payment platform running on Arkade, and why the developer experience for crypto integration needs to stop requiring engineers to become blockchain experts. Alex makes the case that agents are downstream of humans, not sentient, and that the real near-term use case is compute purchasing, not autonomous trading.The back half gets into Nostr's potential beyond social media, specifically as a communication and coordination layer for Arkade servers, distributed order books, and trading applications. Alex is honest that the social media use case hasn't pulled him in, but he sees Nostr's simplicity as a natural fit if a new generation of Bitcoin application companies actually materializes.They close on Satoshi, open source, and why Bitcoin is much bigger than any one person.Time codes: 00:00:00 - Intro 00:02:17 - How Ark and Arkade work technically, client-server model, co-signed spending conditions, comparison to Lightning's hub-and-spoke evolution 00:05:49 - Off-chain contracts with operators, unilateral exit, reactive security model 00:09:18 - Trade-offs: finality, batch settlement, mempool congestion risk for low-balance users 00:13:19 - Ark as protocol vs. Arkade as implementation, why servers don't natively interoperate (Lightning bridges the gap) 00:17:16 - Layer two abstraction, Muun Wallet UX as the gold standard 00:18:34 - Tether investment, growing the team, Bitcoin credit markets as the underestimated narrative of the cycle 00:22:55 - Why stablecoins on Bitcoin matter: USD liquidity for lending, onboarding asset providers, connecting siloed OTC desks into shared on-chain order books 00:27:34 - Stablecoin nuance, on-ramp to Bitcoin, permissioned vs. sovereign trade-offs 00:30:05 - AI and agents: downstream of humans, not sentient. 00:35:47 - Bitcoin's UTXO model as inherently more secure than Ethereum's account model, ByBit hack as case study 00:38:13 - Model degradation during peak usage, deterministic vs. probabilistic code, context management pain 00:44:59 - Bitcoin and AI both grounded in proof of work and energy consumption 00:48:32 - Deterministic code is dead, the creativity explosion and productivity sink trade-off, ADHD and shiny object syndrome with LLMs 00:53:39 - Nostr: not the social media clone, but distributed order books, coordination layers, bounty systems, censorship-resistant infrastructure 01:00:38 - The Satoshi question: "Where does he store his private keys?"Where to find Alex and Ark Labs: https://arklabs.xyz https://arkadeos.com https://x.com/BergeAlex4 https://x.com/ArkLabsHQ Follow Conor: https://x.com/ConorChepenik / conorchepenik

April 3, 20261 hr 3 min

Jan3 CTO Alex Bragin: Bitcoin, AI Agents & The End of Jobs?

Alex Bragin, CTO of Jan3, joins The Conor Chepenik Podcast to break down the evolution of Bitcoin from its earliest days to today’s AI-driven future.Alex shares what it was like discovering Bitcoin in 2011, building early infrastructure and creating Bitcoin futures, as well as watching it grow from $1 to a global asset. The conversation explores how Bitcoin UX improved over time, why most people still misunderstand it, and how AI is reshaping development, companies, and even the concept of work itself.They also dive into real-world implications of AI agents transacting value, security risks with wallets and bots, quantum computing fears, and how nation-states are thinking about Bitcoin adoption.Key themes include:Why long-term Bitcoin holders stop worrying about tradingHow AI is compressing teams and redefining companiesThe risks of AI handling money and private keysWhether quantum computing is a real threat to BitcoinWhy creativity remains a human advantageHow Bitcoin could reshape global incentives toward cooperationThis episode connects two of the most powerful forces of this decade: Bitcoin and AI.Check out: https://www.jan3.com/ Follow Alex on X: https://x.com/BraginRights Follow Alex on LinkedIn: / alekseybragin Follow Conor on X: https://x.com/BraginRights Follow Conor on LinkedIn: / conorchepenik Time Codes: 00:00:00 – Intro: Alex Bragin joins the podcast 00:00:23 – How Alex discovered Bitcoin in 2011 00:03:29 – Why holding Bitcoin beats trying to trade it 00:05:24 – How Bitcoin wallets evolved from early complexity to better UX 00:08:14 – AI excitement, neural networks, and why Alex doesn't trust AI with wallets 00:11:03 – AI agents sending sats and betting in group chats 00:12:39 – People who hate AI, the creativity debate, and job loss fears 00:17:14 – Why Jan3 restructured into smaller AI-first teams 00:21:01 – Voice cloning, scams, and security risks 00:24:39 – Skill atrophy, the meaning crisis, and what abundance actually looks like 00:27:08 – Factory jobs to AI: why this has happened before 00:30:49 – Nation states, Bitcoin strategy, and the quantum computing debate 00:35:54 – Altcoins vs Bitcoin: why most crypto is fiat 2.0 00:38:13 – The Sovereign Individual, fleeing with your wealth, and Bitcoin reducing violence 00:41:43 – Hot wallets, multi-sig, time locks, and the $5 wrench attack 00:46:17 – Privacy, cloud AI surveillance, and why local models matter 00:52:01 – Deepfakes, video evidence, and the collapse of trust 00:55:21 – Em dashes, AI slop, and keeping your writing voice 00:57:06 – If you could ask Satoshi one question 00:59:34 – Outro

March 19, 202647 min

Bobby Shell (Voltage): Lightning, Stablecoins on Bitcoin, & Raising Kids in the age of AI

In this episode of the Conor Chepenik podcast, Bobby Shell, VP of Marketing at Voltage, joins Conor to break down where the Lightning Network actually stands in 2026, enterprise adoption, Cash App's quiet dominance, stablecoins coming to Lightning, and why the next 24 months will define Bitcoin's institutional story.They get into the real trade-offs of self-custody Lightning vs. outsourcing it, how Nostr needs go-to-market people more than engineers, and why Bobby thinks sales is the single most important skill anyone can build heading into an AI-automated economy.Plus: homeschooling, screen time, recess, and what it actually means to raise kids with conviction in 2026.Time Codes: 00:00:00 - Intro & guest background 00:01:58 - Cash App: 8% of onchain, 25% of txns over Lightning 00:02:46 - Stablecoins coming to Lightning & why Tether moved to Bitcoin 00:03:45 - Voltage's dollar-settled product for enterprises 00:04:47 - Lightning as the payment layer for AI agents 00:09:47 - Why some exchanges actively refuse to add Lightning 00:11:34 - Self-custody Lightning vs. outsourcing: honest trade-offs 00:27:16 - The SMB silver tsunami: 10,000 boomers retiring daily 00:32:26 - Sales is the most important skill for the AI era 00:39:48 - What would you ask Satoshi if you got one question? 00:42:21 - Outro musicConnect:My X: https://x.com/ConorChepenik My LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/conorchepenik/ Voltage website: https://voltage.cloud Bobby on X: https://x.com/iBobbyShell Bobby on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bobby-shell-iv/

February 1, 20261 hr 2 min

Lightning Turns Money Into a Data Network | Jesse Shrader, CEO of Amboss

Jesse Shrader built Amboss after paying $60 in Bitcoin transaction fees and watching his payment fail to arrive. Now Amboss is launching Rails X: full peer-to-peer trading directly on Lightning, self-custodial, near-instant, with the network itself acting as a decentralized exchange. In this episode of the Conor Chepenik Podcast we get into Lightning doing 40 million TPS vs Solana's 17,000, why stable coins at the edges actually serve Bitcoiners, AI agents streaming sats for compute, the newspaper-page-size tax story, why the four-year cycle is dead, and Jesse's quote that still floats around Twitter: "Never before has greed tempted me to live a very simple life." Plus my kid closes it out, and if a 3-year-old knows what the best money is, well, you should too. Timecodes below: 00:00:00 — Intro & Jesse's origin story 00:05:46 — Rails X: peer-to-peer trading on Lightning 00:09:27 — Stable coins at the edges & Taproot Assets 00:11:28 — AI tools for building & the "vibe coded app" problem 00:20:41 — Self-custody flips finance on its head 00:29:17 — Lightning for AI agents & micropayments 00:36:04 — Arc, eCash, and symbiotic L2s 00:43:03 — "Never before has greed tempted me to live a simple life" 00:51:38 — 100 years from now: Bitcoin as humanity's record 00:57:01 — If you could ask Satoshi one question 00:58:33 — Sloan's verdict: Bitcoin or fiat?

January 29, 20261 hr 10 min

Preserving 17 Years of Bitcoin History Before It Disappears

The world's first dedicated Bitcoin miner was found at a Swedish yard sale for $10. Now it's worth many multiples of that.In this episode of the Conor Chepenik Podcast I sit down with Tobias Barbir (A.K.A The Coin Dad). Tobias has spent half a decade hunting down the rarest Bitcoin mining hardware on Earth: prototypes, one-of-ones, machines people threw away because they "sucked." His collection is now valued at ~$2.2 million and he's building something that's never existed: a 30,000 sq ft Bitcoin Discovery Center in Dallas, Texas.This conversation covers:→ The 10-month FPGA mining era nobody talks about→ How Tobias orange-pilled a stranger in Sweden over Telegram to complete a transaction→ Why his street hustle background made Bitcoin click faster than finance degrees→ The $100K donation that kickstarted the brick-and-mortar facility→ Plans for the "Orange Pill Crash Course" for high schoolers and politicians→ Bitcoin Trading Cards, signed Michael Saylor rookie cards, and Ross Ulbricht's 21 Club cardTobias's goal: build an endowment fund so the museum runs forever off interest alone, which if successful means they won't need to charge admission for people to see a slice of Bitcoin's incredible history.🔗 Donate to the Bitcoin Discovery Center: https://www.bitcoindiscoverycenter.com/📧 Contact: info@bitcoindiscoverycenter.com🐦 Follow: https://x.com/DiscoverBDCSupport the mission. Even $20 buys three rollers and two brushes.Time Codes:00:00:00 - Intro/How abandoned miners became a museum00:09:41 — Tobias holds up the FPGA Quad Miner, explains 1 gigahash mined 50 blocks/day. 00:21:00 — Phone number digits add to 21. "SHA-256" in the number. 00:26:01–Full Avalon 1 discovery story: April Fools skepticism, 360 video demand, Swedish vintage Apple repair guy. 00:36:45 — "I learned hodling and scarcity on the streets of Houston." 00:57:00 — "I feel like I'm the future walking through the present waiting for the past to catch up."

January 21, 202658 min

The Hayek Strategy: Orange-Pilling Silently (Through Commerce) | Musqet

In this episode of the Conor Chepenik Podcast, I sit down with David Parkinson, CEO of Musqet, and Benjamin de Waal, CTO of Musqet, to break down a pragmatic strategy for Bitcoin merchant adoption. Instead of pitching ideology, Musqet focuses on solving real merchant pain first through an integrated commerce stack, then makes Bitcoin acceptance a native feature that is always available and easy for staff to use.We compare the US and UK payments landscape, including why “cheaper fees” messaging and tender-based discounts do not translate cleanly in the UK and Europe, and how that shapes go to market strategy. We also explore why EPOS and operational tooling matter more than a Bitcoin button by itself, and how Musqet thinks about expansion, with the UAE and GCC likely next before a heavier US rollout.Finally, we discuss the next wave: agentic AI and machine-to-machine payments, why Bitcoin fits natively, and why AI can accelerate engineering while still being dangerous near financial infrastructure. David previews Musqet’s upcoming Bitcoin payroll product, aimed at putting sats directly into Lightning wallets so spending becomes as frictionless as earning.David's X: https://x.com/Musqet_DavidBen's X: https://x.com/Ben_deWaalConor's X: https://x.com/ConorChepenikLearn more at https://musqet.tech/Time Codes:00:00:10 – Introductions and Bitcoin origin stories (Ben: cypherpunk/anarchist path; David: government consulting project)00:08:04 – The Hayek approach: getting Bitcoin into commerce without ideological confrontation00:10:00 – Why Musqet is not Bitcoin-only: using fiat payment revenue to subsidize Bitcoin adoption00:13:03 – UK vs US regulatory differences: interchange fees, surcharges, and why cheaper and faster messaging does not work everywhere00:17:02 – The real sell: EPOS integration solves merchant problems first, Bitcoin comes attached00:24:55 – Expansion strategy: why UAE and GCC are likely next before North America00:32:01 – Agentic AI payments: Bitcoin as native internet money for machine-to-machine transactions00:35:40 – AI in development: tool versus replacement, why vibe-coding payments infrastructure is dangerous00:45:01 – Bitcoin payroll: removing friction by paying employees directly in Lightning00:50:17 – The full merchant ecosystem: payments to treasury to collateralized loans to staff payroll to customer rewards00:54:16 – What would you ask Satoshi?

December 15, 20251 hr 10 min

AI Privacy, Open Source Models & Why Your Data Should Be Yours | Mark Suman (Maple AI)

In this episode of the Conor Chepenik Podcast, Mark Suman (founder of Maple AI and former Apple privacy engineer) discusses the intersection of AI, privacy, and Bitcoin. We explore how Nostr could integrate with AI systems, the implications of training data and copyright, job displacement, and the future of human-computer interaction.Key Topics:Building privacy-focused AI with MapleNostr's role in AI identity verificationCopyright challenges in AI trainingOpen source models vs closed frontier labsFuture of wearables and brain-computer interfacesWhy physical books and letters still matterConnect with Mark:Try Maple AI: https://trymaple.ai X/Twitter: https://x.com/MarkSuman Nostr: https://primal.net/marks Connect with Me: https://www.binmucker.com/ X/Twitter: https://x.com/ConorChepenik Nostr: https://primal.net/p/nprofile1qqsdgz9... Mentioned in this episode:Suno AI: https://suno.com Truffles: https://x.com/itsalltruffles Brian Roemmele Algo on Twitter/X: https://x.com/BrianRoemmele/status/19... Timestamps 00:00:00 The Conor Chepenik Podcast Intro Song 00:01:05 Introduction and Mark's background at Apple 00:03:50 Transition from Mutiny Wallet to Maple AI 00:05:44 Family life and sports 00:06:38 Nostr's potential with AI applications 00:08:02 Identity verification and data authenticity 00:10:24 Selling data for AI training 00:12:47 Job displacement concerns 00:14:05 Internet condoms and local AI agents 00:19:05 Copyright compliance and source material 00:23:51 Echo chambers and algorithmic filtering 00:26:22 Art and music generation with AI 00:30:02 Licensing and open source in AI 00:35:46 Copyright cases and legal boundaries 00:41:31 System prompts and model bias 00:46:13 Music industry parallels with AI disruption 00:49:57 Gain cells and energy-efficient inference 00:53:25 Wearables and heads-up displays 00:57:34 Brain adaptation and lazy loading 01:01:06 Human evolution with technology 01:05:25 Retro technologies and paper books 01:07:36 Email vs physical letters 01:09:27 Maple AI recommendation and closing

November 6, 202558 min

Building a Permissionless Financial System With Willem Schroe of Botanix Labs

In this episode, Conor Chepenik sits down with Willem Schroe, founder and CEO of Botanix Labs, to discuss the critical crossroads facing Bitcoin's future. Willem argues we're at a pivotal moment: either Bitcoin becomes trapped in ETFs and corporate balance sheets, repeating the mistakes of the gold standard, or we build a truly decentralized financial system where Bitcoin functions as programmable, permissionless money.Topics covered:- Why custodial Bitcoin threatens Bitcoin's core mission - How Botanix Labs enables Bitcoin yield through a proof-of-stake sidechain - The mechanics of staking Bitcoin and earning pure BTC yield from transaction fees - Bitcoin as pristine collateral for global lending without underwriters - The symbiotic relationship between Lightning Network payments and DeFi on Botanix - Why AI agents will choose Bitcoin as their native currency - The future of permissionless finance, Nostr, and reducing third-party risk - Bitcoin adoption in emerging markets vs. the US - The role of violence, private property, and code as law in a Bitcoin futureWillem shares his journey from studying cryptography in Belgium to witnessing hyperinflation in Lebanon, and why he's dedicated to making Bitcoin global money as fast as possible. He makes a compelling case for why bitcoiners need to actively use Bitcoin onchain (staking, borrowing, lending, and transacting) rather than letting it ossify as digital gold.Learn more about Botanix Labs and test the future of Bitcoin finance at https://botanixlabs.com/ Want to earn Bitcoin back on everyday purchases? Check out the Gemini Credit Card: https://creditcard.exchange.gemini.co... Stay up to date with my latest projects: https://www.binmucker.com/ Time codes: 00:00:00 Cold open and intro 00:00:18 Willem's journey: from Belgium cryptography studies to Lebanon's hyperinflation 00:03:05 Why the US leads Bitcoin adoption and Europe lags behind 00:05:29 The ETF era: from Winklevoss twins to paper Bitcoin 00:06:03 What is Botanix Labs and how it uses Bitcoin as programmable money 00:07:04 The fork in the road: ETFs vs. a permissionless Bitcoin economy 00:09:23 How Botanix yield works: staking Bitcoin and earning from network fees 00:11:49 Borrowing against Bitcoin and achieving negative interest rates 00:15:17 Using Bitcoin as pristine collateral for a new global credit system 00:17:54 Managing risk and the evolution toward a dynamic federation 00:19:50 The future of Botanix: prediction markets, tokenized assets, and global access 00:23:17 AI tools and the rise of autonomous agents in Bitcoin finance 00:28:37 Why AI agents will prefer Bitcoin: the perfect currency for machines 00:30:04 Nostr and zaps: direct creator payments without algorithms or middlemen 00:36:25 Satoshi’s lesson: third parties are the fundamental risk 00:39:22 How Botanix aims to remove intermediaries from the entire financial system 00:42:05 Digital property rights and how Bitcoin reduces incentives for violence 00:45:43 Technology, intent, and the evolution of modern defense 00:49:56 The proper role of government: protecting private property 00:50:02 One question for Satoshi and thoughts on Bitcoin privacy 00:53:05 The future of Bitcoin privacy and transparency 00:55:24 Final call to action: stake small, experiment, and help build the new financial system 00:56:13 AI-generated outro