At I joined Gareth from The Starting Block to discuss UK policy, media misinformation and the hype around Bitcoin treasury companies. We discussed how mainstream media has damaged Bitcoin’s reputation and public understanding of what it actually is, and how policymakers still lump Bitcoin in with crypto. That means a protocol with a scarce asset is still being treated the same as meme coins. This is why Bitcoin only advocacy is so important. has been fighting this for years on a shoestring budget. While dedicated groups struggle for funding, most corporate capital still seems to prefer generalised crypto lobby groups or more fashionable market narratives instead. In the treasury companies space, the concept has seen a massive wave of copycats emerge over the last 18 months and we have not weathered a full cycle. Many are still experimental financial engineering often involving dilution, leverage and yield chasing. The term is meaningless ... a coffee shop or dog groomer can now call themselves a treasury company just by holding some. Holding bitcoin on the balance sheet alone does not make a company special. There still needs to be a real business underneath it, otherwise bitcoin is being used as the marketing. B Hodl gets a special mention here as an example of a company holding bitcoin while actually building infrastructure and solving real problems. We need education, sound policy and real examples like this instead of more blurred lines with crypto or untested fiat games. Bitcoin benefits from corporate adoption, but not all adoption is equal. Full interview below.

This is another great advert for bitcoin, Nostr and separating money and state. Nobody serious thinks social media is creating a happy, healthy environment for children. The harms from addictive apps, algorithmic feeds, cyberbullying, adult content, predators, body image pressure, endless scrolling and destroyed attention spans are obvious. The problem is that banning things rarely works, especially when technology is moving faster than the digitally illiterate policy class trying to control it. This will push children onto VPNs, fake accounts, encrypted groups, offshore platforms, unregulated apps and darker corners of the internet where parents have even less visibility. It risks turning a difficult parenting problem into a surveillance and identity checking regime for everyone, while giving families the false comfort that the state has 'solved' something it barely understands. We have already seen this pattern with online age checks. The rules come in, VPN use surges, people route around the system, privacy gets weaker, and the children most at risk are driven further underground. Australia’s under 16 ban has already shown enforcement problems, with children learning how to evade the controls rather than becoming meaningfully safer. The really depressing part is how familiar this all feels. We have seen it in bitcoin policy for years. The people with the worst incentives, the least technical understanding and the biggest lobbying budgets somehow end up with the ear of government, while people who actually understand the technology are ignored. It is a total shit show. The answer is not more state control over speech, money, identity and childhood. The answer is better parenting, better tools, better communities, better education, and less blind faith in governments with a proven track record of making problems worse. Handing more power to the state every time society gets scared is how we sleepwalk into something far more dangerous. Critics have already warned about enforcement, privacy and children moving to less regulated spaces.  Research on age verification and the UK Online Safety Act also points to VPN spikes and privacy concerns after age checks. At the same time, early analysis of Australia's ban suggests children often learn to evade controls rather than comply. When governments use 'protecting children' as the justification for sweeping digital control, the question is no longer whether they mean well. It’s whether they are building the infrastructure for something far more dangerous. #ForTheKids 🤔

Gatekeepers beware because Honey Badger don’t give a f*ck! Hosted a panel on how to fight back against CBDCs and surveillance. Interviewed in a Mercedes about his Assange documentary, the $6 billion price of truth and the fight against state power and censorship. Had a great chat with from The Block about the UK and the risks around bitcoin treasury companies. Serious work is happening across culture, infrastructure, resistance, payments, media and privacy. BTC Prague was hopeful, serious, fun and full of energy. Huge thanks to , and the team ... You smashed it!! ⚡️

It was super fun. I would love to do this with Sonic the Hedgehog too!!

D++ is a genius. She reverse engineered (hacked) Mario Kart, read the game’s memory in real time, and connected gameplay directly to Lightning payments. As you race, sats stream to your wallet. The leaderboard updates live. Payments happen automatically. Every lap, overtake and position change can be reflected through Lightning in real time. What makes this so clever is that it transforms Bitcoin from something people are told about into something they experience. For many people, especially in places where scams have damaged trust, learning about Bitcoin through a game is far more powerful than listening to a presentation or reading a guide. Projects like this also help stress test wallets, uncover bugs, improve UX and show developers what’s possible when money becomes native to the internet. The most important thing… it’s fun… and fun is one of the most underrated drivers of adoption. Automated micropayments plugged in live. It’s designed to replace negative scam associations with nostalgia and fun. Apply directly to your own games.⚡️ The building and innovation at is mind blowing!! This will inspire a new generation of builders to create games, educational tools and entirely new experiences powered by Lightning. ⚡️⚡️⚡️

In early 2023 on @GBNews I warned that central bank digital currencies could become programmable money. Money that can be limited, directed, monitored or linked to policy goals. At the time, many people thought this sounded extreme. The Bank of England’s Digital Pound Lab is now trialling use cases involving programmable payments and smart contracts. Across the EU, the Digital Euro is moving forward, while member states are required to provide EU Digital Identity Wallets by the end of 2026.  In the UK, digital ID, age verification and the Online Safety Act are all expanding the infrastructure for digital authoritarianism. Financial freedom depends on preserving the ability to transact without permission. Bitcoin is a peaceful way to opt out. Speaking about this on stage at @BTCPrague. Details below.

The 1970s did more than change money, it changed our relationship with consciousness and connection too. With Nixon’s Controlled Substances Act in 1970, psychedelics were pushed into Schedule I and research was driven underground. A movement that questioned authority, perception and inner freedom was treated as a threat. The following year, the dollar was taken off the gold standard. People were severed from intuition and money was severed from energy. These actions explain so much about where we are now. A society drowning in debt, mental distress, disconnection and permanent war, while still pretending these things are separate problems. Hunter S. Thompson captured the comedown in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The great wave of the 1960s had broken and rolled back, leaving behind the sense that something alive had been interrupted before it could fully reveal what it was reaching for. The response to this rupture has taken two different forms. One asks us to look inward and untangle the unconscious patterns running our lives. The other asks us to look outward and question the monetary system governing the world. This demands that we stop outsourcing reality. Illusion, awakening, fear, resistance and the difficulty of seeing clearly in a world built on managed perception. Maybe the decline did not begin when money lost its anchor. Maybe it began when society declared war on the tools that help people see the cage. I wrote this Forbes piece in 2024 and the connection between psychedelic therapy, bitcoin and sovereignty feels even more relevant now. https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2024/03/13/the-converging-interest-between-psychedelic-therapy-and-bitcoin/ 💕

Totally agree. Stablecoins are a CBDC via the back door. This will be part of the discussion. 🫡

Wicked!!

CBDCs are financial surveillance with better branding. They are being be sold as innovation, convenient and inclusive. Once money becomes programmable, freedom becomes conditional. - Who decides what you can buy? - Who decides where you can spend? - Who decides when your access ends? The Czech Republic knows what centralised power looks like and has always felt like the right place to talk about bitcoin, cypherpunks and financial freedom. I’ll be moderating a panel on how to defend against CBDCs and surveillance with , Lea Thompson, Viliam Klamarčík and Tony Yazbeck. Read the article here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2024/06/17/bitcoin-cypherpunks-and-financial-freedom-at-btc-prague/ See you in Prague.