Official Podcast Episode: https://stephanlivera.com/783

Alex Recouso argues that Bitcoin solved capital mobility but not human mobility: you can move money across borders without permission, yet you still need permission to move yourself. His answer is that everyone should think about a second passport before they need one, because, as he puts it, you can't buy insurance once the house is on fire.

Alex is co-founder and CEO of CitizenX. He says he discovered the idea of alternative citizenship at 14, and that understanding Bitcoin in 2020 convinced him it was the missing piece. CitizenX sells citizenship by investment programs and, by his account, advises governments, including El Salvador, so he is not a neutral observer.

He splits buyers in two: citizenship programs suit people with high liquidity and low mobility, while residency and naturalization suit people with high mobility and less capital. They cover the main tiers, from cheaper Plan B passports to Caribbean programs, Turkey, El Salvador and Argentina's newly announced program, and why he prefers donation routes to government-approved real estate.

The downsides get airtime too. Alex expects EU pressure to cost Caribbean programs their visa-free access or make them unattractive. He argues European rules can change overnight, citing Italy's flat tax and Spain's closed golden visa. And naturalization through residency is cheaper but never guaranteed. They close on AI's limits as an advisor, rising versus established countries, and compounding in a low-tax place.

Timestamps

• 00:00 — Intro

• 00:43 — Bitcoin Solved Capital, Not Human, Mobility

• 02:04 — Selling Citizenship: Countries Competing

• 05:14 — Buy or Earn: Liquidity vs Mobility

• 06:57 — Why Program Prices Rise and Fall

• 08:55 — Weak Passports vs Plan B Buyers

• 11:32 — Donation vs Real Estate Routes

• 13:35 — Three Tiers: Plan B, Caribbean, Outliers

• 17:06 — Argentina's Program: Costs and Country Risk

• 20:09 — EU Pressure and Schengen Risk

• 23:12 — What Countries Gain or Risk

• 25:52 — Beyond Visa-Free: Settlement Rights

• 28:43 — HENRYs, Urgency, and Sequencing

• 31:14 — Insurance Before the House Is on Fire

• 33:06 — Naturalization Is Cheaper but Not Guaranteed

• 37:00 — Changed Rules in Portugal, Italy, Spain

• 41:07 — UAE, Singapore and Citizenship Limits

• 42:49 — CitizenX vs Traditional Firms

• 47:08 — Can AI Replace Citizenship Advisors?

• 49:02 — Rising Countries: High Risk, High Reward

• 51:34 — Lower Taxes and Compounding

Links: 

• https://x.com/recouso

• https://x.com/CitizenX

• https://citizenx.com/

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Prashanth Chandrashekar argues that much of Europe's debanking comes down to how banks score transfers. Money arriving from a crypto exchange's account is treated as a higher-risk third-party payment, while a transfer between two accounts in your own name passes with far fewer flags. Bringin's answer is a named virtual IBAN for each customer, which he says lowers the risk of being debanked rather than removing it.

Prashanth, who is from India, started Bringin after moving to Estonia holding Bitcoin and finding he couldn't easily spend it. He now runs the company's consumer app and its new business accounts.

They cover MiCA's licensing reset, which by his figures left only about 30% of earlier firms licensed but lets the survivors passport across the EU; accounts closed without explanation under tipping-off rules; and how named IBANs differ from the deposit IBANs exchanges hand out. On the consumer wallet, built on Spark, he is direct about the trade-offs: operators are mostly centralized and can see payments, though they cannot move funds alone.

On Bringin for Business, he describes pilot users such as mining-rig sellers paying suppliers abroad, plus stablecoin support and accounting exports. The custody model differs from the consumer app: keys sit in a hosted Turnkey enclave with spending policies, Bringin holds an extra key in multi-director setups, seed export is discouraged, and ownership changes run through Bringin's backend. Third-party euro payments were promised within days of recording, and corporate cards are not yet available.

Disclosure: Stephan is a small investor in and advisor to Bringin.

Timestamps:

00:00 — Intro

00:37 — MiCA: Costly but Passportable

03:28 — Debanking: Why Banks Block Exchange Flows

07:04 — Named vIBANs vs Exchange Deposit IBANs

11:25 — Spark Self-Custody and Its Trust Trade-offs

13:03 — Why Banks Are Harder on Businesses

15:22 — Who Joined the Business Pilot

18:08 — Beyond Debanking: Accounting Headaches

20:31 — Business Keys in Turnkey Enclaves

24:53 — Key Rotation Runs Through Bringin's Backend

26:24 — Roadmap: Third-Party Payments, No Cards Yet

30:45 — Next Customers: Stablecoins and Agents

33:31 — Regulation Outlook: DAC8 and Data Risk

34:39 — AI Agents, MCP, and Payments

Links: 

• https://x.com/prashanthc123

• https://x.com/bringinxyz

• https://bringin.app/business

Stephan Livera links:

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Setzeus argues that 90% of people will never properly use seed phrases and hardware wallets, and that services like Privy and Turnkey, which split a key behind an email or phone login, are a good-enough floor for self-custody. Stephan pushes back on what that gives up: verifiability, portability across devices, and a degree of vendor lock-in.

Setzeus (Jesus Najera) runs SetDev, a Bitcoin L2 and metaprotocol engineering and security shop whose biggest client has been Stacks. He built BitScript and founded Cofund, a cross-chain multisig web app aimed at families, fiduciaries, and founders.

The conversation opens on the recent run of hacks, including the Coldcard incident, and his view that the cryptography is not broken but AI has made attacks on everything around it cheaper. They cover Justin Drake's "bunker mode" post, why Bitcoin builders get nerd-sniped by technology over product, why multisig adoption remains small, and whether ETFs are better than nothing for people who won't self-custody.

On Cofund itself, Setzeus explains spending policies built from signer sets, thresholds, and rules on Taproot script paths. He is plain about the limits: on Bitcoin only the signer set is enforced on-chain, spend caps rely on the client without covenants, rotating a signer means moving funds to a new set, and the free tier charges a 1% transaction fee.

Timestamps:

00:00 — Intro

00:37 — From SetDev's L2 Work to Multisig

03:20 — After the Coldcard Hack: Why Self-Custody?

07:56 — Justin Drake's Bunker Mode and ECDSA

10:13 — Are Bitcoiners Bad at Building Products?

15:59 — Seed Phrases vs Privy-Style Key Sharding

20:25 — Trade-offs: Verifiability and Lock-In

25:35 — Recommending Self-Custody After Hacks

30:40 — Families, Fiduciaries, and Founders

34:25 — Spending Policies via Taproot Script Paths

37:24 — Limit: Bitcoin Spend Caps Not On-Chain

39:59 — Key Rotation Means Moving Funds

41:11 — Cofund Pricing and Fees

42:03 — Thesis: Multisig Becomes Joint Accounts

Links: 

• https://x.com/getcofund

• https://x.com/setzeus

• https://getcofund.com/

Stephan Livera links:

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Andrew Webley walks through Smarter Web's capital structure—ordinary shares as growth equity, a repaid short convert, Coinbase credit, and MORE as the income preferred.

Webley is CEO of The Smarter Web Company (LSE: SWC), the UK's largest publicly traded Bitcoin treasury. He traces the path from Hargreaves Lansdown to listing on Aquis, then the LSE Main Market, while building toward roughly 2,747 BTC on the balance sheet.

The conversation covers ordinary shares versus preferred equity, why SWC repaid its short convert, how the Coinbase credit facility fits a "buy leverage when cheap" playbook, and the launch of MORE—an income preferred designed alongside SWC growth equity. Webley contrasts treasury companies with ETFs and spot Bitcoin, stressing Bitcoin-per-share growth, liquidity for institutions, and GBP denomination without US dividend withholding.

He also flags the downsides: treasury structures amplify Bitcoin volatility, management can mess up capital allocation, and in a drawdown there is no guarantee that equity, credit, or preferreds will be available.

Timestamps:

00:00 — Intro

00:25 — Hargreaves Lansdown to Smarter Web

02:09 — Saylor Pivot Was His Bitcoin Moment

04:00 — Listing the UK Treasury Play

08:44 — Clean Balance Sheet Structure

11:25 — Coinbase Credit at the Bottom

14:32 — Debt vs NAV Reporting

19:45 — Bitcoin-per-Share vs Total Return

21:32 — How Institutions Actually Buy

25:02 — Treasury Co vs ETF vs Bitcoin

28:12 — MORE Preferred Equity Explained

30:17 — Amplification Cap at 35%

33:11 — Sterling Preferred Advantage

37:49 — Downside Risks: Volatility and Execution

40:27 — Drawdowns and Uncertain Capital Access

Links: 

• https://x.com/asjwebley

• https://x.com/smarterwebuk

• https://www.smarterwebcompany.co.uk/

Stephan Livera links:

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Bitcoiners built L402 for a Lightning-native web. Crypto built x402 for agents — and early volume is mostly stables. Ben Carman helped get Lightning into the x402 standard, and argues the pragmatic move is to meet that stack in the middle rather than wait for L402 alone.

Ben Carman of Spiral rejoin me to unpack HTTP 402 Payment Required, facilitators versus Coinbase Commerce, why agentic payments are still near zero today, and why AI agents may adopt Bitcoin faster than humans — because models already know sats, invoices, and QR codes.

Timestamps:

00:00 — Intro

00:50 — L402, x402, and MPP

01:09 — What HTTP 402 Actually Is

02:41 — Meet x402 in the Middle

03:44 — Facilitators and Coinbase Default

06:06 — x402 Standard vs Coinbase Commerce

07:26 — Stables Dominate Early Volume

08:03 — Agentic Payments Still Near Zero

08:55 — Agents Already Know Bitcoin

12:05 — Personal Agents vs B2B Agents

13:03 — Pay-Per-Query Agent Wallets

16:14 — Businesses on Bitcoin Are Easier

16:39 — AI Climb and Builder Craft

22:29 — Won't Fund OpenAI — Still Uses Them

25:38 — Cost Deflation = Human Freedom

28:57 — Best AI tools as of Oct 2

31:16 — Terminal Bench and Real Evals

32:25 — Bench Maxing vs Real Feel

34:59 — Four Years From ChatGPT

36:56 — Quantization Without the LARPs

39:51 — Mesh Alliance and Mesh LLM

42:37 — Goose, LDK, Think Big

Links: 

• https://x.com/benthecarman

• https://x.com/spiral_xyz

Stephan Livera links:

• Follow me on X: @stephanlivera

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Bitkey ditched seed phrases for a recovery-focused 2-of-3 design: an app key, hardware key, and Block server key that use phones, hardware, and cloud access to help people retain control of their funds.

Clay Garrett, Bitkey lead at Block, joins Stephan Livera to explain the design trade-offs: safety as security plus recoverability, cloud backup that needs your hardware to decrypt, and why Bitkey does not treat vendor lock-in as its ethos.

They dig into recovery paths, multi-vendor trade-offs, transfer-without-hardware limits, Recovery Contacts and inheritance, a working FROST prototype, what covenants could move on-chain, chain code delegation, and privacy-conscious Electrum options.

Timestamps:

00:00 — Intro

00:19 — Clay Garrett Joins — Bitkey at Block

00:56 — Bitkey V2 and the 2-of-3 Model

03:03 — Safety Means Access and Recoverability

04:11 — App+Hardware Spends Without Block

07:09 — Cloud Backup and Instant Phone Swap

09:27 — Lost Hardware and the 7-Day Delay

12:14 — Vendor Lock Is Temporary, Not Ethos

15:44 — Multi-Vendor After Coldcard

21:20 — Which Wallet Fits Your Threat Model?

26:49 — $5 Wrench and Transfer Without Hardware

30:04 — Recovery Contacts and Inheritance

36:06 — FROST Prototype Already in the Repo

38:04 — On-Chain Looks Like Single-Sig

39:34 — Covenants Could Move Policy On-Chain

42:09 — Chain Code Delegation — BIP 89

46:10 — Electrum, Mempool, and Custom Servers

52:08 — Industry After Coldcard Changed

55:21 — Wallet Plus Free-for-Life Co-Signing

Links: 

• https://x.com/clay_garrett

• https://bitkey.world/

Stephan Livera links:

• Follow me on X: @stephanlivera

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Most crypto exchanges are built like casinos: they chase the next hot token, prediction market, or trading product. Relai is building a different category—a savings brand for people who want to accumulate Bitcoin, hold it in self-custody, and build wealth over the long run. Julian Liniger explains why serving patient savers requires a different product, message, and business model.

The conversation also explores why rising living costs are pushing Europeans to rethink ordinary savings, and why the temptation to get rich quickly can drive people toward momentum trading and leverage. Julian makes the case for a longer time horizon: Bitcoin savings is less about chasing the next move and more about consistently building a position through changing market conditions.

Supporting context includes Relai's MiCA compliance journey, where regulatory overhead is costly but can also raise the bar for smaller competitors. Julian also discusses the company's self-custody model and reports more than 100,000 users holding over 20,000 BTC in their own wallets—not under Relai management. The episode covers how a Bitcoin-only company can earn revenue through services around long-term ownership while keeping the savings proposition at the center.

Timestamps:

00:01 — Europe's Cost of Living Squeeze

03:11 — Why Europeans Still Don't Get Bitcoin

07:37 — High Time Preference & Get-Rich-Quick

10:31 — Bitcoin Needs Patience Again

10:54 — AI Hype vs Bitcoin as Savings

14:58 — Bitcoin Is Where You Keep Your Winnings

21:42 — Leverage, Treasury Cos & Risk

23:46 — Relai Private Loans in Europe

29:03 — MiCA: Overhead and Moat

33:11 — Bitcoin Savings vs Casino Exchanges

35:26 — 100k Users, 20k+ BTC Self-Custody

37:49 — Retail App vs Relai Private

40:00 — Self-Custody Phone Wallet

42:58 — Seven-Figure Raise in a Bear Market

45:12 — AI for Building and Securing Relai

50:00 — Living Costs Drive Bitcoin Search

Links: 

• https://x.com/julian_liniger

• https://x.com/relai_app

Stephan Livera links:

• Follow me on X: @stephanlivera

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Bitcoin soft-fork debates around CTV, CSFS, OP_CAT, and OP_VAULT keep stalling — and Misha Komarov of Allocinit argues you can emulate much of that covenant behavior with cryptography instead of changing consensus.

Misha joins Stephan to unpack Bitcoin PIPEs v2: a Witness Encryption design that locks a signing key under an NP statement so a valid zero-knowledge proof decrypts the key and produces an ordinary Schnorr spend. Bitcoin L1 only checks a normal signature.

They compare PIPEs v1 (Functional Encryption / richer post-covenants) with v2 (Witness Encryption / binary pre-covenants), ciphertext sizes from ~300 TB toward single-digit terabytes, DKG and 1-of-n setup assumptions, non-custodial vault and shared-pool use cases, contrasts with cosigner models like Sigbash, and how Allocinit’s Shielded Bitcoin design differs from Shielded CSV’s client-side validation approach — plus open cryptanalysis challenges and a path toward implementable code.

Timestamps:

00:00 — Intro: Misha & Bitcoin PIPEs v2

00:27 — Background: BitMessage to =nil;

01:31 — Soft-Fork Fatigue & Nice-to-Haves

03:24 — Emulate Opcodes Without Soft Forks

04:54 — Witness Encryption Unlocks Keys

06:01 — Witness Encryption vs Bitcoin Witness

09:00 — PIPEs v1 vs v2: FE to WE

11:39 — Ciphertext Size & Cost Trade-offs

15:28 — Vaults as the Unhappy Path

16:23 — PIPEs vs Sigbash Cosigner

18:05 — DKG Setup & 1-of-n Trust

21:11 — Shared Vaults & Lending Use Cases

23:24 — Beyond Canonical OP_VAULT

26:35 — Shielded Bitcoin vs Shielded CSV

32:17 — Self-Custody Peg-In and Peg-Out

37:14 — On-Chain Footprint Walkthrough

39:42 — Security Challenges & Code Roadmap

Links: 

• https://x.com/nemothenoone

• https://x.com/allocinitxyz

Stephan Livera links:

• Follow me on X: @stephanlivera

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Almost every public Bitcoin node still runs Bitcoin Core. Brandon Black argues that client monoculture is a systemic risk — and that automation plus AI now make independent consensus implementations more realistic than skeptics assume.

Brandon (aka reardencode) returns to Stephan Livera Podcast for the first episode in a mini-series on non-Core Bitcoin implementations. He is shipping rbitcoin, a Rust full node aimed at server-side wallet and Lightning backends, with Electrum served in-process.

They dig into why rbitcoin has no UTXO set and no Core-style dbcache, how build-time differential testing differs from satd’s in-process libbitcoinconsensus dual-eval, BIP324 v2-only P2P, archival storage tradeoffs, LibreRelay-inspired policy, and what “production-ready™” means when every first-party line was written by AI under his prompting.

Brandon is blunt about maturity: the project is still early, contributors are welcome at rbitcoin.org, and listeners should treat alt clients as high-scrutiny infrastructure — not a drop-in replacement for Core tomorrow.

Timestamps:

00:00 — Intro: Brandon Black & rbitcoin

00:34 — Why Build rbitcoin

03:46 — Alt Clients Mini-Series

04:39 — Consensus Divergence Risk

05:53 — satd vs rbitcoin Paths

06:51 — Automation Makes Diversity Possible

08:29 — Build-Time Differential Testing

09:20 — Why Consensus Bugs Matter

10:55 — Lessons from btcd Divergences

13:35 — Target User: Wallet Backends

15:29 — Miners Leave the Non-Goal List

16:47 — Kill the dbcache Model

20:50 — Electrum In-Process

22:23 — Silent Payments & Tor

23:01 — BIP324 v2-Only P2P

23:46 — AI-Coded: Zero Human Lines

25:04 — Grok Plus Multi-Model Review

27:01 — DoS Rules & LibreRelay

28:34 — Upgrade Hooks

29:34 — Archive-Only, No 'UTXO Set'

31:50 — AI as the New Compiler

33:52 — Context Limits & Dependencies

38:06 — rust-bitcoin Relationship

39:08 — Wallet Infra Opportunity

40:00 — Still 10% a Joke

41:35 — Future of Client Diversity

44:50 — Outro: rbitcoin.org

Links: 

• https://x.com/reardencode

• https://rbitcoin.org/

Stephan Livera links:

• Follow me on X: @stephanlivera

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Most Asian markets still make buying and saving Bitcoin painfully hard. James of Ârc argues the fix is not another protocol breakthrough — it is local founders shipping simple DCA and savings products market by market.

James joins me from Mirissa Beach, Sri Lanka, where Arc is partnering with Fulgur Ventures on a continuous Bitcoin accelerator. He is a former EY advisor and Playfair Capital investor who previously built with Alexander Mann (now Fulgur GP) and later sold Consequence, an early LLM-on-databases company.

The conversation covers why the program is continuous rather than a six- or twelve-week cohort, how to apply at arc.lk/Fulgur, why Sri Lanka ranks among his top-three country bets, the South Coast talent melting pot, funding DCA apps across Asia even where operators already exist, AI agents as Bitcoin users, and why Strike expanding should not scare local founders.

Timestamps:

00:00 — Intro: James of Ârc

00:35 — From Accenture to Venture Capital

02:13 — Building With Alex Singh

03:21 — Fed Up With Monkey JPEGs

05:10 — Ârc Fulgur Bitcoin Accelerator

06:35 — Continuous Program at Mirissa

07:34 — Two Paths Into Ârc Fulgur

10:13 — Why Sri Lanka?

12:02 — Top-Three Country Bet

12:23 — Whales, Leopards, Beach Hub

15:00 — South Coast Talent Melting Pot

18:36 — 34 Local Founders Already In

21:39 — Fund DCA Apps Across Asia

25:23 — AI Agents Will Use Bitcoin

28:18 — Room for Many Asian Operators

32:23 — Just Focus on Your Customer

32:39 — Apply Now

Links: 

• https://x.com/James_of_Arc

• https://x.com/FulgurVentures

• https://arc.lk/

Stephan Livera links:

• Follow me on X: @stephanlivera

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Mike Belshe, co-founder and CEO of BitGo, walks through how institutional Bitcoin custody actually works in 2026: qualified custody, self-custody co-signing, and why BitGo still centers a 2-of-3 model after pioneering P2SH multisig in 2013.

BitGo now operates as a US-regulated qualified custodian and public company, while still offering the same wallet stack individuals can run in self-custody mode. The conversation covers what “institutional security” means in practice — HSM-backed co-signing, open-source recovery paths, multi-jurisdictional key storage (including how BitGo moved WBTC when US regulation looked hostile), and why on-chain multisig still beats vendor-locked MPC for cold ops.

They also dig into the political and operational risks around large Bitcoin holdings: KYC and PII as honeypots, France tying names to amounts, the war on cash reaching Bitcoin, and whether an EO 6102-style confiscation risk still belongs in the threat model. On the institutional side, Belshe pushes back on multi-custodian setups that add failure modes, explains insurance limits versus the size of the Bitcoin market, and why splitting wallets matters after events like Bybit.

Timestamps

00:00 — Intro: Mike Belshe of BitGo

00:59 — Don't Lose Self-Custody's Power

05:41 — Retail Deserves Institutional Security

07:16 — Humans Are Terrible at OpSec

09:56 — 2-of-3 Protects Theft and Loss

14:35 — Retail Pays 160 Basis Points

19:22 — Why People Drift Toward Banks

20:35 — Self-Custody Is Never Trustless

23:39 — Why BitGo Sticks to 2-of-3

30:31 — A Public CEO Holds Zero at Home

31:27 — KYC Leaks Are Government Honeypots

39:28 — France Doxed Bitcoin Holdings

41:30 — War on Cash Reaches Bitcoin

43:45 — Multi-Jurisdictional Key Storage

45:29 — Executive Order 6102 Could Return

47:43 — Quantum-Resistant Wallets Today

49:27 — Multisig Beats MPC

53:33 — Splitting Custodians Adds Failures

58:29 — 2-of-2 MPC Can't Recover Loss

01:00:57 — $5–7B Insurance vs $1.6T Bitcoin

01:03:35 — Bybit Lost 10x by Not Splitting

01:05:21 — Multi-Institution vs Qualified Custody

Links: 

• https://x.com/mikebelshe

• https://x.com/bitgo

Stephan Livera links:

• Follow me on X: @stephanlivera

• Subscribe to the podcast

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